


Whatever our deserts

by fleurjaune



Series: Whatever our deserts [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Parenting, F/M, Feelings Realization, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, I mean I am upgrading Gabriel to a solid b+ for effort so, Identity Porn, Minor Character Death, Moving On, Oblivious Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, POV Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurjaune/pseuds/fleurjaune
Summary: Adrien is horrified when his father's assistant is critically injured in a battle with Hawkmoth, but has to try to support his father though this new grief without completely losing him; or how Chat Noir defeated Hawkmoth by accident with some unknowing help from an unconscious Mayura.
Relationships: ...I can't promise lovesquare shenanigans won't sneak in, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Series: Whatever our deserts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794208
Comments: 83
Kudos: 183





	1. Chapter 1

Normal was a very relative word when it came to Akuma attacks but Adrien couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different about this one even as he tried to focus on finding the akumatised object and protecting Ladybug.

The akuma victim himself was behaving pretty par for the course and there was nothing strange about his powers but something was off about Hawkmoth.

That he’d made an appearance in person was already unusual but not unknown. The really odd thing though was his behaviour. He was barely even putting up a fight. He’d do the bare minimum to deflect Chat Noir and then run off again, yet he never seemed to make any real effort to leave the area either. Past experience showed him to be fully capable of successfully retreating if he wanted to, so Adrien was forced to conclude that he didn’t want to leave.

If there was a plan here Adrien couldn’t see it. For the first time in any fight with him it almost felt like Hawkmoth just wasn’t that interested going after either of their Miraculous.

He tried to convince he was overthinking it. After all there was an easy answer-that Hawkmoth was waiting for Chat Noir to get hit by one of his victim’s beams and forced to move in slow motion, so then he could swoop in and take his miraculous. That idea felt hollow though when it didn’t seem like he was making much of an effort to force him into them.

If anything Adrien was forced to conclude that he seemed distracted, but what could be more important to him their Miraculouses?

A jump took Adrien back closer to Ladybug, and he took his chance calling out “Does it seem like Hawkmoth isn’t really putting effort in to you?”

Ladybug dived under the Akuma’s latest beam “I’m a little distracted, but he hasn’t attacked me at all, swap and I’ll see?”

Taking care not to lose sight of Hawkmoth Adrien jumped in to distract the Akuma while Ladybug span and gave chase after Hawkmoth.

After that there was very little time to think until he was almost backed up to a corner by the Akuma and Ladybug saved him with a yo-yo to the victim’s head. 

“Thanks for the assist. But shouldn’t you be chasing Hawkmoth?”

Ladybug shook her head “He’s not attacking us, and he’s not running away, and you’re more important even if he was.” She took a breath while they both circled the Akuma “He seems to be looking for something.”

Adrien frowned “Something more important to him than our Miracalouses?”

Ladybug shrugged. “Mayura hasn’t turned up yet. Maybe he’s stalling until she appears? Or maybe he’s looking for her? He does seem to care for her.”

That Mayura hadn’t appeared was the other odd part of the fight. She didn’t always turn up and she’d been missing with increasing frequency recently but Hawkmoth attacked in person even less and since Mayura’s first appearance there had never been a time when Hawkmoth had been here and Mayura hadn’t. Good reasons for her absence escaped him so he suggested a bad one to Ladybug, “Do you think she got lost?”

Ladybug smiled “Maybe” but then she became serious again “but I do think we need to defeat this Akuma. Any idea what the akamatised object is?”

“My guess is the stopwatch.” Or he hoped it was anyway. Hawkmoth hadn’t given into much fancy when he’d created Speeder’s look, and their antagonist’s outfit still looked much like a normal athlete save for the glowing eyes and lighting bolts on their limbs, so there wasn’t much else it could be. He really hoped it wasn’t the trainers because that would make things difficult.

With them both focused on Speeder it was easy to lose track of Hawkmoth. Adrien felt uneasy and tried to keep an ear out for the supervillain as they dealt with the Akuma, but it was obvious who the bigger current threat was and he couldn’t afford to get distracted and hit. Again, he wondered if that was Hawkmoth’s game but if it was then all he could do to thwart it was to try to focus.

It all went very quickly after that and they managed to capture and cure the akuma leaving him free to give his whole attention to the supervillain, but of course by that point Hawkmoth had disappeared.

After casting Miraculous Ladybug his partner went over to console the victim but winning the fight hadn’t diminished Adrien’s sense something was up at all. It should have been fruitless to look for Hawkmoth at this stage with the head start he must have got on him, but Adrien couldn’t convince himself to give up yet.

He leapt to the next building trying to check all the streets below when a flash of purple in a small side alley caught his eye.

Without waiting for Ladybug he headed down to investigate. As he got closer he realised that the villain was holding someone in his arms. The pose was familiar and the obvious idea that it was Mayura entered his mind for a second, but from what he could see of her face the women being held had a pale normal human skintone though he couldn’t make out much more. 

Whatever problems Mayura had with her morality they didn’t carry over to her intelligence. She’d not chose to cancel her transformation while Hawkmoth still maintained his, and she’d not been in the battle so she couldn’t have run out of time either.

So it wasn’t Mayura, but that didn’t explain who it was or what Hawkmoth was doing. Hostage taking wasn’t unknown for him but the battle was already done, it didn’t make sense what he’d need a civilian for now.

He needed to get closer but without startling the villain away. He starting to climb down behind Hawkmoth trying to balance being quick with not making any noise. Thankfully his enemy never thought to look up or behind him but staying behind Hawkmoth’s back did limit what he could see of the victim.

He reached them just in time as Hawkmoth rose from the kneeling position he’d been in as Chat Noir landed. Despite his catlike grace Hawkmoth must have heard him because he turned around immediately spitting, “Do you two never stop?”

“Release your” Adrien started only to be stuck dumb as he recognised the women as Nathalie. His first thought was that she shouldn’t be here, wasn’t the upside of his father’s agoraphobia that he didn’t need to worry about them during Akuma attacks unless the house itself was attacked?

Then he mentally kicked himself. He knew Nathalie left the house even if his if his father didn’t.

Hawkmoth didn’t wait for him to regain his senses, “my what?”

“Your hostage!”

“Is that what you think is happening?” Hawkmoth scoffed tightening his grip on Nathalie.

“I don’t care what’s happening. Let her go!” he yelled panicking. Whatever Hawkmoth had done to her Nathalie remained slumped unconscious of everything going on.

“Why don’t you just let me leave?!”

“Why would I do that?” Adrien screamed, trying to restrain the temptation to start building up Cataclysm. He couldn’t use it on Hawkmoth while he was still holding Nathalie. He shouldn’t use it on Hawkmoth anyway but right now he couldn’t bring himself to care about that.

“You heroes are supposed to care about civilians aren’t you? She needs medical attention, let me take her to the hospital.”

“Let me take her to the hospital. Since when do you care about civilians anyway?”

Hawkmoth stared at him. “We haven’t got time for this conversation. Do you promise you’ll look after her?”

“Yes. Obviously. Yes. Just release her and go.”

Hawkmoth slowly placed Nathalie down on the ground before springing off in the other direction.

Adrien ran over to collect Nathalie. She looked even worse close up. She was deathly pale and his breath hitched as he saw blood by the edge of her mouth. He reached out shaking to wipe it off and found himself muttering meaningless reassurances to her while he tried to work out how best to lift her without dropping or hurting her. If only he’d already had the growth spurt he was sure he was due. Hawkmoth had made it look easy but he had quite the height advantage on Adrien when it came to carrying an adult woman, and it wasn’t like Nathalie could cling onto Chat Noir the way Marinette had.

He couldn’t have just let Hawkmoth take Nathalie when he couldn’t be trusted to do anything he said he would, but if Adrien had stopped and thought about things like Ladybug was always asking him, then maybe he could have forcibly escorted Hawkmoth to the hospital with her rather than being laser focused on just getting him away from Nathalie. 

He was about to make the attempt to pick her regardless up when he was stopped by Ladybug yelling “Wait.”

He looked up to see his partner right there. “We don’t know what happened to her. If something’s broken you might make it worse.”

Adrien felt like an idiot all over again. He hadn’t even considered that. He really did need to start thinking and not just responding “We should call an ambulance.”

“I’ll do it. I need to recharge anyway.” She offered quietly, heading off round the corner. The glow of her detransformation shone round the corner and he could hear her talking quietly on the phone.

He reached out to Nathalie then pulled away afraid of hurting her. Then he remembered how tightly Hawkmoth had been holding her and reached out and touched her hand. When no flinch was forthcoming from her he clasped his around hers relieved to feel the slight warmth emanating from it. She was alive, that was clear from the gentle rise and fall of her chest but it felt more real feeling it rather than just seeing.

He found himself talking to her again promising she’d be ok, perhaps she couldn’t hear him, but he this was all he could do.

Ladybug returned hesitantly and crouched down next to him. “Do you know her? Is there any family we should call?”

Once Hawkmoth had left it hadn’t even occurred to him that he should be pretending not to recognise Nathalie to preserve his identity. He had no idea what he’d been saying to her, and whether he’d said her name, or if Ladybug was just going off his level of distress.

“Chaton?”

“I don’t know, I mean I do know who is she is,” It seemed fruitless to claim otherwise, “her name’s Nathalie Sancoeur but I don’t know about any family.”

He tried to ignore his guilt about how little he knew about Nathalie’s life and focus on frantically trying to come up with a reason for Chat Noir to know Nathalie, “You know Adrien Agreste right?”

“I know him. Of him. So does most of Paris.”

“So we’re sort of friends?”

“Ok?”

“I’m met her at his house. She works for his father.” Suddenly it seemed obvious. “We should call him.”

“You want us to call Gabriel Agreste?” Her voice rose slightly on his surname. “Would his office even put us through?”

“ _Nathalie’s_ the one that answers his office phone. Look I’ll make the call. Can you,” he trailed off.

“I’ll stay with her.”

Luckily his father had ensured Adrien had memorised his mobile number when he was much younger so he could make the call from his staff directly without needing to detransform to access his civilian mobile but he hesitated before entering the number.

Any call made from the staff would come through as an unknown number and though few people had his father’s personal mobile number rather than his work one maybe he wouldn’t pick it up. He could call as Adrien but Adrien had no reason to know about any of this.

Suddenly the obvious occurred to him and he ran back to Nathalie and Ladybug.

“Did you?” Ladybug started before trailing off as he reached in Nathalie’s blazer pocket and pulled her mobile out in triumph.

“You had a point about whether he’d answer me, but he’ll answer her.” He pressed Nathalie’s finger to the back of the phone thankful that she used a fingerprint login.

Only when he finally made the call his father doesn’t answer.

He stared at the phone. He could leave a voicemail but he hadn’t even considered what to do if the phone wasn’t answered. The idea that his father wouldn’t answer Nathalie hadn’t even occurred to him.

Then the phone rang and he almost dropped it trying to answer the call.

“Nathalie?” asked his father. He must have heard about the Akuma attack because he sounded frantic. Adrien really wished he didn’t have to tell him there actually was something to worry about.

“Um, not exactly. This is Chat Noir. I afraid Mlle. Sancoeur’s been injured in an akuma attack. We thought you should be informed.”

“Where is she now?”

Just as Adrien was about to explain the ambulance finally appeared. It must have been audible down the phone for his father continued “Are those sirens?”

“Yes, the ambulance has just arrived. I’ll make sure you’re informed where they’re taking her.”

“Why isn’t she in hospital already? You’re supposed to be superheroes, why didn’t you take her there?” he snapped.

Adrien had a long list of tellings off from his father to compare this to and this time he was really angry. Not that Adrien could blame him and maybe he was even right but “I’m not a medical professional Sir, Ladybug and I didn’t want to cause any further injury accidentally.”

“Well, tell me where she’s being taken at least.”

“Of course.”

He waved down one of the paramedics to get the information and passed it on, at which point his father cut the call without thanking him. It was rude but Adrien couldn’t find it in himself to be offended, not when he was understandably worried about Nathalie. 

One of the paramedics asked if either of them wanted to come with her but he forced himself to decline. Watching the doors close with Nathalie inside was the last thing he wanted to do but he needed to get back to school pronto, before anyone started looking for Adrien Agreste.

* * *

The repetitive beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room.

Adrien appreciated that his father had somehow managed to get them in to see Nathalie despite the hospital’s initial resistance but he wished he’d just say something.

All of Paris thought Chat Noir was a hero but he didn’t feel like one when he couldn’t even keep his own family from fracturing further. Heroes were supposed to be courageous too and he didn’t even feel brave enough to break the silence.

His father sat still as a stature next to him with a completely blank face. To someone else it might look like a lack of any emotion but unlike them Adrien had lived through his mother’s disappearance and recognised his father’s response. That couldn’t be a good sign about how Nathalie was.

Previous experience also told him that left to himself his father probably wouldn’t even move until the hospital made them leave, never mind volunteer information on Nathalie’s condition, but though somewhere deep in his gut he already knew it was bad he needed confirmation instead of this cruelly hopeful uncertainty. Eventually this need won out over his habitual hesitation to interrupt and he asked “Will she be ok?”

His father finally moved to look at him.

“Adrien.” He exhaled. “Nathalie’s always telling me to be more honest with you, her prognosis is not good.”

“But I don’t understand how Hawkmoth could have had time to hurt her. Ladybug's Lucky Charm should have fixed it if it happened before that and they found her almost right after.”

“Nathalie’s been sick for a while. Today was just the last straw.”

“The coughing? But she always said she was fine whenever I asked.”

“We didn’t want to worry you.”

“You never do do you?”, Adrien muttered, perhaps usually he would have left the complaint for later, for Plagg or Nino to hear, but it seemed he did still have some of Chat Noir’s recklessness after all.

His father could ignore a lot when he wanted to but apparently not things said to his face, even quietly. “Adrien.”

Adrien could hear the warning in his voice but for once he couldn’t bring himself to care. “No one ever wants to worry me. Not you or Nathalie or Maman. It's the same as what Maman had isn’t it? You never said what was going on then either. Did it kill her too?”

“No. Why would you say that? Your mother is alive, I’m convinced of that.”

“Right because even people without mysterious illnesses turn up fine after being missing for over a year.”

His father looked away from him again “I’m not discussing this any further in public. I thought you were better behaved than to make a spectacle of us like this.”

Adrien waited for any further reprimand but it didn’t come. His silent vigil over Nathalie seemed to take precedence.

Watching him watching her the anger had powered Adrien’s outburst wasn’t sustainable. He didn’t feel like he could summon the energy to argue with his father that a private hospital room wasn’t really in public. It seemed like a pointless thing to fight over with his father’s pre-existing hatred for tabloids and their intrusion into their personal lives; and when he knew that part of that at least stemmed from wanting to protect Adrien. Honestly with what Adrien had seen written about his friends like Marinette and Kagami just for being pictured with him he was starting to understand the impulse.

Still the silence was oppressive and somehow seemed to have got heavier than it had been before Adrien spoke originally. 

“I’m sorry.” He offered in an attempt to diffuse the tension.

His father didn’t look back at him but he sighed and ran his hand over his hair before replying “No I’m sorry. You’re right-we should have told you Nathalie was ill. I suppose we both thought we had more time.”

When he heard this Adrien realised that although he was cross with his father and Nathalie, they were already suffering, and his real anger was with someone else.

So he tried to offer some comfort “You might have had if not for Hawkmoth. This is his fault.”

Unfortunately this didn’t seem to reassure his father at all. Instead he just crumpled in his seat. Adrien had never seen him so far away from his usual ramrod straight posture, even when his mother had been around and his father had actually relaxed sometimes. 

Then he did look back at Adrien but he seemed to stare through his son without really seeing him when he said “You’re right. If Hawkmoth didn’t exist Nathalie wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“I wish Hawkmoth didn’t exist.”

“I’ve had that thought myself.”

“I, I believe in Ladybug obviously, I mean she’s amazing”, Adrien was unsurprised to see his father roll his eyes at this, he couldn’t blame him for being unimpressed with the heroes today, but he continued “and Chat Noir too but I just wish they’d defeated Hawkmoth before now” and today he felt very guilty they hadn’t and guilty too at how little he’d felt so before. “Usually everything gets fixed by Ladybug, so I suppose I don’t really think about the damage it causes but”

“It’s not your job to think about the harm it causes, you’re just a child.”

“So are Ladybug and Chat Noir”

“Well, I can’t say approve of that either. If I was one of their parents, well, I wouldn’t let any child of mine parade around Paris putting themselves in harm’s way.”

Adrien fought back a wince. He knew full well that if his father discovered he was Chat Noir he’d probably never be let out of the house again, and the mansion had enough security that he wasn’t sure that anything short of Cataclysm would let him escape. 

Thankfully his father seemed to completely miss or misinterpret his response for he continued “I know the Bourgeois’ let their daughter play the hero but the idea of you becoming involved terrifies me. Especially after today.”

Adrien hid the truth from his father all the time but it felt harder to lie directly to his face when his father was actually making an effect and being emotionally honest with him for once, and while he couldn’t tell the truth, he could tell _a_ truth, “I’m involved anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

Adrien gestured at Nathalie in disbelief, “and she’s not the only person I know who he’s hurt, I mean he’s akumatised you, and Gorilla, and Chloé, and basically all my school friends. Sometimes I almost think he’s targeting me, even if that makes me seem self-centred.”

“I” Gabriel paused “I had no idea you felt so affected by it all, but as someone who has been akumatised I can promise you that Hawkmoth isn’t targeting you, he’s targeting Ladybug and Chat Noir.”

“That doesn’t really make me feel much better,” and his father had no idea how true that was, “whatever he wants their Miraculouses for it can’t be worth all of this.”

“It must be to him.”

“Well yeah” Adrien said “It’s not like it’s his family and friends getting hurt. It’s not Mayura in a coma is it? And evil people who want absolute power don’t tend to care about collateral damage do they?”

His voice broke act the end as he tried not to cry and when his father reached over and pulled him into a hug he actually did.

“We’ll fix this Adrien. I’ll get Nathalie back for us.”


	2. Chapter 2

If Adrien had hoped that what had happened in the hospital room was going to be some sort of breakthrough in their relationship he’d been sorely mistaken. For the next two days his father had been even less available than normal. He should have expected it since Nathalie wasn’t there to prompt him to leave his work or act as go between but it still felt like rejection.

It also made the absence of Nathalie in her own right feel even worse. While he liked Nathalie and he knew she cared for him in her own way he’d didn’t realise how much he’d miss even just their boring professional interactions. He’d almost be happy for her to turn up and tell him he had to cancel time with his friends for a photoshoot at this point. Now it sometimes felt like he was the only one in the house.

At least he had his friends at school. He didn’t know where he’d be without Nino and Marinette had even brought in macarons to cheer him up.

Closer to home Gorilla clearly felt sorry for him. When he’d picked Adrien up from school there’d been a hot chocolate in the cupholder waiting for him and since it had been raining he’d even let them give his friends lifts home despite the fact usually his father complained about any lapse in Adrien’s punctuality.

Though given Adrien wasn’t convinced his father had left the Atelier at all that first day it was possible he hadn’t even noticed. He’d asked his bodyguard if he'd seen his father all day but he didn’t know what he was up to either and he’d violently shook his head when Adrien had wondered aloud if he should go in there and check on him.

The only silver lining was that it made sneaking out easier though Adrien would really appreciate it if Hawkmoth would stop sending akumas for them to fight in the middle of the night. Why was his nemesis even up at two o’clock in the morning?

Confused and exhausted Adrien had felt very unconvinced by his father’s claim that Hawkmoth didn’t have anything against him, even though he knew it was an illogical grudge. Hawkmoth just hated Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Paris in general, not Adrien Agreste in particular.

Still, the akumamatised victim-a new mother unable to send quiet a crying baby whose powers sent people to sleep, was one of their easier fights as most of Paris was already asleep and didn’t even discover there was an attack until the day. Left with only themselves to defend he and Ladybug had been able to defeat her fairly quickly, and from what she’d said afterwards it didn’t sound like Hawkmoth had given her that much direction.

Or at least he hadn’t given her much direction about the defeating Ladybug and Chat Noir. He had apparently told her that soon enough she’d miss her son being a baby, sleepless nights and all. Apparently he'd even suggested ideas for getting the baby to sleep. Whether or not the akumatisation had been one of these ideas hadn’t clear even to the women in question, who explained that he also sounded pretty drunk. Which might at least explain sending out an Akuma with sleep powers at night-time.

The akuma victim hadn’t seemed to hold any animosity for the incident anyway, though that might have been because Miraculous Ladybug had woken up her husband who had started apologising profusely for not realising how much she’d been struggling. She’d even expressed a hope they’d be “nice” to Hawkmoth when they captured him.

Adrien wasn’t sure how to process the whole incident. Trying to imagine Hawkmoth holding a baby, or looking after child was difficult. To imagine Hawkmoth caring for someone was, not impossible exactly, he clearly cared for Mayura, but Adrien had always assumed any consideration to stop right there. 

Maybe it did. As the child of a distant father himself Adrien felt a level of righteous indignation at Hawkmoth’s choice to go after himself and Ladybug instead of focusing on his family and Mayura clearly wasn’t any better. At least his father had the excuse of his mother’s disappearance.

Ladybug had shared his confusion though she seemed more resigned to the possible revelation telling Chat Noir that “nothing’s ever simple is it? But I’m hoping he was talking about like, a nephew or something.”

She’d then made an very odd face and when he kept pushing her she admitted that she kept imagining a blue baby wearing with a silver mask even though obviously any child wouldn’t look anything like their parent’s transformations. 

This had made him and then her burst into laughter and they’d jointly agreed they were too sleep deprived themselves.

Adrien had just about managed to retain some dignity by not admitting she’d totally put the image of baby in a Ladybug babygro with Chat Noir style ears in his head.

At least the next day had proved that Hawkmoth hadn’t upped his Akumatisation schedule permanently. What Hawkmoth was up to was unclear but it seemed like he wasn’t committing to sending out new akumas on a once a day frequency after all, and with everything going on Adrien was taking the upsides where he could get them. If Ladybug could see any pattern in to the attacks she hadn’t mentioned it and it certainly went over Adrien’s head.

When Adrien sat down for dinner he was still trying to work out if they’d missed something about Hawkmoth, and almost didn’t notice his father entering the room. When he did and hurriedly sat up straighter his father just waved it off. He looked even more exhausted than Adrien. Whatever he’d been doing it hadn’t been sleeping.

After a few stilted greetings dinner continued in much its normal silence so Adrien was even more shocked when his father decided to speak.

“Nathalie told me that Ladyblogger girl is in your class at school”

“Yes?” Adrien answered at a loss. School was one of the few things that did get discussed at dinner but Alya specifically had never come up since Adrien had described all his new friends.

For a moment it looked like another lecture on not getting involved was forthcoming especially as his father muttered something about “no sense, any of them” shaking his head but instead, after apparently gathering his thoughts, he asked “Can she contact Ladybug and Chat Noir? She does interviews with them doesn’t she?”

“Um, yeah I guess, I’m sure she could get hold of them if you wanted”, after all contacting Chat Noir wasn’t really the issue at all, “Did you want to talk to them? I don’t know if they’ll have anything more to tell us about what happened to Nathalie.”

“I’m hoping they might have a solution.”

Chat Noir certainly didn’t but Adrien couldn’t say that, instead asking “A solution?”

“You know I have an old book about the Miraculous.”

“The one the Collector was about? You said you had it for inspiration.” Adrien said as his heart started to sink.

“I do. Or did. It’s been little good for that, everything Miraculous related I’ve drawn seems in bad taste for the catwalks these days, but I have been looking since” he paused seeming unsure how to refer to the fight that had left Nathalie in a coma, “since we left the hospital, and while I have no idea what any of it means the illustrations seem to suggest that the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous have powers beyond what we’ve seen in Paris. And Hawkmoth clearly wants them even though the Butterfly seems to be a more versatile source of power, so I suppose I was thinking that perhaps they would be able to do what modern medicine can’t.”

There hadn’t really been anywhere else his request was going to go, but Adrien had been hoping against hope that perhaps this solution was about capturing Hawkmoth, concerning enough as that would be, rather than mimicking his tactics. He couldn’t blame his father for wanting their Miraculouses to fix anything-he couldn’t know what the repercussions of any wish made with them would be.

He needed to redirect him from this idea and quickly; Ladybug had been wrong about Hawkmoth’s identify but it was starting to look like she hadn’t been wrong about the sort of personality that would fixate on the Miraculous.

“Father. I can talk to them if you want but they won’t be able to help.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“They can’t give up their Miraculouses. Everyone knows that.”

This statement of known fact did not seem to have any impact on his father who just said “I’m not asking them to give them up. Just for a favour.”

“If they could help people like Nathalie, don’t you think they would? The hospitals of Paris are full of people, if they could miraculously heal people they’d do it already.”

“Would they?”

“Yes. I suppose you haven’t really met them but I have and they’re good people.” Adrien said trying not to take it personally.

“Adrien you think everyone is a good person, I don’t know where you get it from.”

“Maman I guess.”

“You get a lot from her but not that. Your mother had no naivety about people, her idealism was of a very different sort.”

Adrien felt discomforted by this statement. He always wished his father would talk more about his mother but this didn’t fit with the person he remembered, she’d never shown any of the unease in company his father had.

He changed to the subject which he did know more than his father about, “Look. I’ll talk to Ladybug and Chat Noir, just don’t do anything without me.”

In fact he might even actually talk to Ladybug. She might see some solution he didn’t and he did owe it to Nathalie to try.

“You sound like the parent saying that, but I want to say the same to you, talk to your classmate, contact the superheroes if you can, but I want to speak to them myself.”

“I’ll ask them, but really I’m sure I’ve got it covered.” Adrien replied with no intention at all of reintroducing his father to Ladybug. He didn’t want to subject Chat Noir to that sort of continued scrutiny and the last thing Ladybug needed was another person after her Miraculous. Worse if she ever did discover who he was she’d never trust him after that and he couldn’t lose another person from his life.

“I’m serious Adrien. I need to know I can trust you.”

That made things awkward but, “You can trust me to do the right thing.”

“Can I?”

“Yes?” he replied uncertain where this was going.

“You were late back the other day.”

“Only slightly _and_ I was with my bodyguard all the time. I never even left the car. We gave my friends a lift home because it was raining. I was just being polite, and a good reputation is good press isn’t it? You always say that. I still had plenty of time to do all my homework and you’re never out of the atelier at that time so I didn’t think you’d miss me.”

“You didn’t,” he pressed his fingers against his temples, “You’re right. I didn’t realise you were late at the time, I only realised afterwards. I’ve become too reliant on Nathalie to inform me of your whereabouts. But she’s not here now, and I need to know that you’re safe, that I’m not losing you too.”

“I was safe. I mean apart from Hawkmoth I guess but nowhere’s safe from him. Even you’ve been caught up in his mess.”

“Nonetheless, I would be happier if I knew you were here. If your bodyguard judges another jaunt like that acceptable, then I want you to inform me. You have a phone. Use it. Text me.”

“Oh, I can do that.” Adrien reassured him, glad to have got away with it so easily, and that it didn’t look like he was going to be asked anything more about Ladybug and Chat Noir.

* * *

He must of looked as bad as he felt waiting for Ladybug to patrol because her greeting was “Hey kitty, you alright?”

“Do I look that bad?” He couldn’t be losing his ability to hide his feelings now, if there was anything his home and professional life was supposed to be good for it was helping him always put on a good front.

“Not to anyone else perhaps, but I know you, and this isn’t you.”

“Adrien Agreste asked if there was anything that we could do to help Nathalie.”

“Oh.”

“And I said there wasn’t, because there isn’t is there? Any wish just leaves another family in the same position. I couldn’t say anything else could I? But I still feel like I’m letting him down.”

Labybug bit her lower lip “I don’t know Adrien as well as you seem to, but I have met him”.

She looked unsure as to how to continue. Usually she always knew what to say so this had to be concern about her identify. She had no idea that he already knew Ladybug had met Adrien, had offered him the Snake miraculous even.

“And?” He prompted her. He wished he knew how she’d known him then to choose him but he wasn’t going to prod at Ladybug’s identity and relationship with his civilian identity right now. Not when he couldn’t help but wonder whether if he’d been less distracted by that they might have stopped Hawkmoth before it had come to this.

She frowned “and I can’t tell you how, but from what I know he doesn’t the sort to blame you. Everyone says he’s a very forgiving person.”

That was very flattering, and it was a good if somewhat random reputation to have, but as it happened Adrien did blame Chat Noir for not stopping Hawkmoth, and Hawkmoth for what he’d done, and his father for hiding Nathalie’s illness and sending her out into a supervillain attack in the first place and how exactly he split the blame between them varied from moment to moment.

He could hardly tell Ladybug that though.

It was nice too, hearing what she thought of him. Adrien wanted to be the person Ladybug believed he was. He’d like to believe that if he was just Chat Noir’s friend he wouldn’t have blamed Chat Noir for it. He wasn’t sure it was true but perhaps Chat Noir wouldn’t blame himself as much in that situation because Nathalie wouldn’t really be anyone to him. 

“I guess. I just wish there’s something I could do, but we can’t can we-?”

“No. I don’t know why Miraculous Ladybug didn't work but it didn’t and I don’t know anyway to change it. Except for, well you know the consequences of a Wish, we can’t do that.

“Yeah, it's worth less than nothing then it comes to helping us.” He complained.

“Maybe you should-wait, what did Adrien ask you exactly?”

“Uh, just if we could help. We are the anti-Hawkmoth people you know.”

“Right. Sorry. If he’d asked for the Miraculous I was going to say you should tell him about the consequences of the wish. That would be fairer than keeping him in the dark, rather than making him feel like we just don’t care about helping him but if he doesn’t have any idea it’s better to keep the fact a wish can be made to ourselves.”

“No that makes sense.” Hating himself for lying he continued “I’m sure Adrien has no idea about the Miraculous.”

“Is it bad I’m relieved? We already crossed Gabriel Agreste off the list for Hawkmoth I know but.”

He cut in “There’s no way Hawkmoth’s Gabriel Agreste. I can see why’d you’d think that, and if it wasn’t for Nathalie I might wonder that too but he wouldn’t hurt her.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Trust me, he’s taken it pretty badly. You should ask Adrien if you see him.”

“I don’t need Adrien to confirm it, hearing it from you is enough proof for me. But, if I see Adrien should I ask how he's doing? I don’t want to pry, but, I do feel guilty about not being able to help him too. It’s my ability that failed to heal Mlle. Sancoeur.”

“No, it’s not your fault. I’ve been thinking and Hawkmoth must have confronted her after you’d used your ability. And Adrien told me she was ill already so you couldn’t have fixed that anyway.”

“Oh. But he did say Hawkmoth caused her collapse? It wasn’t just a coincidence?”

“Trust me my lady it wasn’t a coincidence. I got there before you and it was definitely his fault.”

“Did you see..”

“What he did? No. But he was going to run off with her and”, Adrien had only realised this last point when his father had made a similar expression at dinner earlier referring to Nathalie’s condition, “he looked guilty.”

“He’s a supervillain, he’s always going to look guilty of something.” She smiled trying to raise his mood.

“No, I mean he looked like he felt guilty.”

“Really? That _is_ new. I suppose he’s used to us fixing everything with Miraculous Ladybug too. That might explain the other night.”

“I guess. I just find it hard to have any sympathy for him discovering villainy has consequences.”

“Me too, honestly, but don’t tell anyone else that!”

“Of course I won’t”

They fell silent again but unlike the awkwardness he and his father fell into this felt comfortable to Adrien. He could feel the warmth emanating from Ladybug next to him, and then she reached out and clasped his hand. Cautiously he leaned towards her and when she didn’t back away he laid against her resting his head against hers.

“Did Adrien say how she was?” Ladybug broke the silence.

“He said it wasn’t good. He doesn’t really know what’s happening but, his dad doesn’t seem to think Nathalie’s going to wake up.”

Ladybug squeezed his hand. “That’s worse than I thought then. I’m sorry. Even if she was ill before I wish I knew what Hawkmoth did so I could stop it.”

“I wish I could tell you but no one’s really telling,” he caught himself just in time “Adrien anything.”

“I guess that makes sense. He’s not a relative is he? Hospital’s are pretty strict about handing out information. Do you think we qualify as need to know? Maybe we could ask the Mayor?”

Adrien had tensed at Ladybug stating he wasn’t related to Nathalie. It was the legal truth, but it didn’t capture any actual truth of their lives. Technically she might just be his father’s employee but she’d been there as far as he could remember, she was just part of his life. She’d spent Christmas with them for goodness sake. Surely she was as much an Agreste as a Sancoeur at this point.

“Chat?”

Ladybug had noticed his reaction. Of course she’d noticed he berated himself. He’d only completely failed to answer her question.

“I’m not going to push.”

“What?”

“You care for her and I’m not going to ask how or why. I think I can guess that maybe you don’t know Mlle. Sancoeur through Adrien, you know him through her, but I’m not going to looking. I know I’m strict on our identities and I have to be, but if you need to grieve then I don’t what you to have to hide that from me. We’re supposed to be a team, and teams support each other.”

He was awestruck. Ladybug was just superlatively understanding. He couldn’t think of anyone like her. Even Marinette who dealt with Lila with such grace couldn’t come close. Unbeknownst to her she’d offered him two gifts, the one she’d meant to, and a total misunderstanding about his identity.

“Thank you. No, really thanks that means a lot Ladybug.”

“Do you want to talk about any of it?”

“No, but could you stay here with me for a while? If that’s ok? I know it’s not a school night but if you’ve anything else on tomorrow? ”

“That’s the easiest thing I’ve been asked to do in a while. Trust me. No one is getting me out of bed first thing on a Sunday morning.”

There was a slight shift in weight as she went from allowing him to lean against her to leaning back against him, and the two of them remained like that, hands clasped watching the stars.

It was the most at peace Adrien had been for days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel's Miraculous related designs are inappropriate for public view because they're like 70% too obviously Mayura, 10% too much Peacock!Emilie, 10% rejected for looking like a mix of them and he doesn't like thinking about the implications of that, and 10% from that time he thought Adrien might be Chat Noir and it kept coming through in the menswear designs.


	3. Chapter 3

After patrol it had been too late to say anything to his father. Unlike Hawkmoth Adrien didn’t make a habit of waking people up in the middle of the night. He almost wished he did though as he felt so on edge It took him forever to get to sleep and when he woke up he hardly felt rested at all. Somehow despite his exhaustion his alarm clock claimed he had overslept, but at least it was a fairly free weekend so he wasn’t going to get in trouble for that.

Once he was dressed and had forced some food down he went looking for his father. He couldn’t find him in any of the residential parts of the house. He even checked his room on the off chance that maybe he’d overslept too. That only left the Atelier and if his father was working now that was going to put the conversation off to a bad start before Adrien even said anything. His father hated interruptions at the best of times, and usually working at this hour on a Sunday didn’t mean anything good about his mood either.

Though it wasn’t as if he could expect his father to be in a good mood. Not with Nathalie still in hospital with little hope of recovery. He’d hoped maybe that he’d seek Adrien out this morning to see if he’d heard from Alya though, but perhaps he didn’t expect any response from the heroes yet. 

Adrien stared at the Atelier door. All he had to do was knock and tell his father that he'd spoken to Ladybug and Chat Noir, and about the consequences of the wish. Compared to fighting Hawkmoth it should be easy. His father would be cross with him for talking to the heroes without him but he'd drop the idea of going after their Miraculous surely, and that was the important thing.

He'd dealt with his father’s anger before, and he probably wouldn’t punish him by taking him of school again. Probably. He could cope with anything below that easily and if he had to be horrid and bring up that Nathalie thought school was a good idea for him then he would. She'd approve anyway he was sure.

He knew part of the reason he didn’t want to go in was that admitting to his Father that Ladybug and Chat Noir couldn’t save her, felt like a final confirmation she was dying but he knew that was irrational. Nothing had actually changed.

He knocked, “Father?”

“Come in Adrien.” Despite the acknowledgement he didn’t look away from his drawing tablet.

“Can we talk?” Adrien asked.

“Can’t it wait? I’m working.”

Of course he was, as if Adrien hadn’t guessed that from his being in his Atelier, even if it was a weekend. He pushed down his irritation. This was his father all over, he'd claim to care and then act like the opposite.

“I spoke to Ladybug & Chat Noir. I thought you’d want to know but we can talk about it later if you want”

His father looked up from his work and put down his tablet pen. “I only asked you to get in contact with them. I was going to talk to them myself.”

“I saw a chance and I took it, I wasn’t going to delay helping Nathalie if I could.”

He sighed. “That’s understandable I suppose, but can they help?”

“No. They would if they could but they can’t. They really are sorry” He tried to put every part of the apology he felt into his voice but he knew it was pointless. Nothing was going to make the situation any better.

His father scowled. “This is why I wanted to speak to them Adrien. You can’t just take no for an answer.”

“You don’t understand! You couldn’t just intimidate them into it, they want to help but there are consequences.” He kicked himself for not leading with that.

“For giving out their Miraculous? I hardly care about that.”

“For using them that way.’

Some emotion flickered over his father's face too quickly for Adrien to make sense of, “I’m sure those could be dealt with.”

“They’re not something you can just work around, look, we could save Nathalie by wishing for it, but it would put someone else in the same situation instead.”

“And?”

Adrien stared horrified thinking he’d somehow misheard his reaction. That couldn’t have been just an unconcerned “And?”

“You wouldn’t do anything to save Nathalie?” his father continued.

“I…I” Adrien spluttered, “of course I want to save Nathalie, but I’m not going to sacrifice someone else to do so. You said she’s dying . That would be murder.”

“Not all lives are equal.” Said a man who looked like Adrien's father but whom Adrien didn’t recognise at all. His father had always been a cold man but this was something completely different.

“What are you even saying?”

“You care that much about someone you don’t know?”

“It’s not about caring! You can’t just justify killing someone because you don’t know them!”

“Perhaps you don’t care about Nathalie enough. What about if it was your mother in her place?”

“What.” He didn’t understand the relevance. They couldn’t use the Wish because it was the wrong thing to do, it had nothing to do with whom they are saving.

“Wouldn’t you swap a stranger’s life for your mother?”

“No. Why would you think I’d want that? I miss Maman, but she’s gone, and I’ve accepted that, and, and she wouldn’t want what you’re proposing either.” Adrien paused to catch his breath “and I do too care for Nathalie. How dare _you_ say that? _I’m_ not the one that kept her working when she was apparently severely ill, but she wouldn’t want this either.”

His father stared at him, “but you need her.”

Adrien wasn’t sure which her his father meant but it didn’t really matter, “No, I need my father to stop planning to kill people, because he can’t face the idea of actually parenting me, instead of handing it off to his wife or assistant.”

“That’s not what’s going on.”

Adrien clung to the abrupt dismissal-this at least he recognised. It felt like the first piece of solid ground he could grab onto in this conversation.

“Isn’t it? Ever since Hawkmoth put Nathalie in hospital, you’re reacting exactly the same way as you did when Maman disappeared, except apparently worse now, because at least then your reaction wasn’t deciding murder, and probably theft was ok.”

“You making me sound like some sort of serial killer.”

Adrien glared at him daring his father to defend himself.

“Adrien, I don’t actually want to kill anyone.”

“But you would.”

“For the sake of our family. For your sake. Yes. I know I’m not a good father but.”

“You know that?” Adrien interrupted in shock. Despite what his friends might think he did know his father wasn’t perfect, he might not have been sheltered but he did have TV and the internet, he knew what a family was supposed to look like. Yet he’d always known his father did love him, and he’d always thought he was trying his best, but if he knew he could be better then suddenly that idea looked shaky.

“I don’t suppose I could expect you to deny it.” His father sighed “I’ve never been good with people, not like your mother was. I hoped it would be different when you were born, and it was when you were very little, but as you grew older I never seemed able to be what you needed. Emilie always seemed to know what was right for you, and she just radiated warmth, and she barely seemed to need me there to look after you at all, and-well, I know it’s not an excuse but I was struggling to manage launching the brand while still working for Balanciaga and Emilie’s career was stuttering, and it just made sense to let her take the lead with you, and it worked so over the years we just left it that way. Then she got sick, and then she disappeared, and I was left as the sole parent of a brilliant clever 13 year old I had no idea what to do with. Even Nathalie seemed to know what you needed more than I did.”

“Maybe because she was around me significantly more than you were. Especially when Maman got sick.” He felt guilty putting his connection with Nathalie purely down to time. She hadn’t had to do things like give him her favourite books. “And she does care for me too, she’s not just your employee to me.”

“She does. She cares too much for both of us, and since your mother got sick I’ve, I’ve lent on her too hard. I’ve been unfair to her and I’ve been unfair to you. In a lot of different ways, but I shouldn’t have expected her to do my job caring for you. But Adrien I do want to you know that just because I’m not good at showing it to you doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I do. And I would do anything for you. Including using Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculouses whatever the consequences.”

If only, Adrien thought, his father could have stopped before ruining it all with that final sentence. Yet perhaps it still contained a glimmer of hope, “You’d do anything for me?”

“Yes, I just said that.”

“Will you promise to give up on the idea of using the Miraculous?”

His father’s jaw dropped and he just stared at Adrien. Then he almost whispered “That’s want you want?”

Then he collected himself somewhat and said in an imploring tone, “Don’t you understand? I’ll do anything for your wellbeing, including making myself the villain.”

Adrien interrupted “I don’t want what you’re offering. I don’t want my father to become Hawkmoth 2.0. I want us to get through this together like normal people do.” He had meant to stop there but he just couldn’t stop the words coming from his mouth. “I want the parent I still have to stop making excuses, and stupid plans, and just be there for me. I don’t care if you’re not good at it, I want you to try. I want you to want to, and not to prefer the idea of killing someone to actually raising me.” 

“I don’t. It’s not preferable.” He stopped. “You’re sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll try.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

A notification came through on Adrien’s phone breaking the silence. He looked down at it glad for the excuse to break eye contact but the message itself broke any enthusiasm he had, “Oh, I've a piano lesson in half an hour.”

“Do you want me to cancel it?”

“You’d let me?”

“I cancelled nearly everything I was meant to do the last two days. I'd be a bit of hypocrite if I didn’t let you off one piano lesson.”

“Nathalie wouldn’t be impressed with you ignoring her schedule like that.”

“No, she wouldn’t would she?”

“Could you cancel it? And could we go visit her later?”

“Of course. That’s a good idea.”

“Thanks. I'll, um, let you work for now. I'm sure you've lots to catch up on.” He excused himself from the room.

* * *

It wasn’t until he’d left he realised how his heart had been racing and he felt dizzy as he made his way back to his room.

This was supposed to be what he wanted. Agreement to forget the Miraculous was the outcome he’d gone in looking for and he’d got it. He’d even got more than he’d been aiming for-their relationship hadn’t been on his agenda.

But the image of his father blithely shrugging off the consequences wouldn’t leave his head. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. His father had been supposed to give up on the idea because of the consequences of the wish, not because Adrien didn’t want him to do it.

He wanted to speak to someone about it but he couldn’t tell the full story to anyone and even omitting half of who he was he’d still have to explain his knowledge of things he wasn’t supposed to know.

Besides what was he meant to do, text Nino “apparently my dad is ok with killing people!”? 

He didn’t even want to imagine where that conversation would go.

Tell Ladybug about what had happened? And admit he’d lied about Adrien’s knowledge of the Miraculous? And deal with her suspicions of both sides of him, and his father?

No that wasn’t an option for him. He’d sorted the issue and she didn’t need to know. Besides what could his father even do about it?

He just had to calm down. The last thing he needed was to be akumatised. There wasn’t an obvious alter ego and powerset for what Adrien was feeling but then that hadn’t stopped Hawkmoth before.

Plagg appeared on his shoulder. “Your dad is certainly something.”

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”

“Hey, look on the bright side, it looks like you’ll be able to guilt him into buying you whatever you want.”

Apparently Plagg hadn’t noticed yet that, “Refusing me material stuff’s never been the problem.”

“Could be helpful dirt if he ever tries to cut off your camembert purchases though.”

“Did I do enough Plagg?” he asked hoping the Kwami would give him a serious response for once.

“You did well kiddo. Maybe we should set you on talking down Hawkmoth.”

“Like that would work.”

“Yeah, that guy seems allergic to rest, as if we didn’t have enough reasons to dislike him anyway.”

“Is it bad I don’t want to tell Ladybug about my father?”

“The wanting isn’t bad. Actually not telling her her? Eh, Sugercube says she’s a lot on her mind. Do you think he’s a threat right now?”

Adrien considered. His father was certainly _willing_ to be a threat, but he’d agreed not to be, and besides it wasn’t even clear he’d be capable of being a threat; he was a fashion designer not a weapons designer.

“No. I don’t think so.” He decided.

“Not telling her unless anything changes can’t go that badly wrong then.”

Again he had the sensation of getting what he wanted without it really meaning anything to him. Nothing felt right in the world.

Gathering his courage he asked Plagg, “Do you think he says something bad about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s willing to kill, and I’m his son, and I still want him to be my father anyway.”

“No.” Plagg said conclusively as if the answer was obvious.

“No?” asked Adrien who lacked any of that certainty.

“Look, angst is exhausting and therefore not worth it, so forget it. You’re a good kid and a good Miraculous wielder and Fu would never have allowed me you if you were anything like your dad.”

“You’re sure?”

“Force of destruction remember? The holder of my Miraculous has to be picked pretty carefully or humans could go the same way as the dinosaurs.”

“Oh. Yeah that makes sense.” He said relieved despite himself.

“Trust me there have been Chat Noir’s with relatives’ _way_ worse than your father out there. Keep that ring away from him, but you don’t need to worry about yourself. You’re one of the nicest holders I’ve had.”

* * *

Seeing Nathalie silent and unmoving on the hospital bed wasn’t really any better than it was the first time.

After speaking to Ladybug Adrien had felt the guilt start to lift, and then his conversation with his father had shoved it down to bottom of his pile of turbulent emotions but when he saw Nathalie like this it all came back.

He knew there was nothing he can do. He knew it was his job to make sure his father knew there’s nothing he can do. He even knew even that the one thing he could have done might have only put this moment off if she was that ill, but now he was actually in the same room as her none of it stopped him from feeling like he was failing her.

Adrien only realised he’d been fidgeting when his father put a hand on his leg to stop him, and even as Adrien tensed waiting for the rebuke asked “Do you want to leave?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“What?”

“If you want to talk to her I won’t make you do it with an audience. I can wait outside. Get a coffee or something.”

It’s an unusually sensitive suggestion from his father and Adrien struggled to reconcile this version of him with the one he’d argued with earlier. 

He’d have taken it up to encourage this attempt even if he didn’t like the idea anyway, but as it was, “That’s not a bad idea. If you’re sure you don’t mind?”

“So long as you’ll offer me the same courtesy.”

“Of course”

Without his father there he did feel less tense but upon opening his mouth to speak he suddenly remembered the last time he was here and his father calling this a public place. He wanted to throw that aside as just paranoia but in truth he had no idea how thick the walls are here, or even if his father had actually gone for a coffee or was just waiting outside the door. He might have promised not to go after their Miraculouses but the last thing Adrien needed to do was put more temptation in his way by letting slip he was Chat Noir.

Even here to someone who can’t spill his secrets he couldn’t speak fully honestly, but he could say something.

“Hi Nathalie. I don’t know if you can hear me, I think they say you should talk to coma patients but I don’t know if that’s just to try and make people feel better. If you can hear me, we really miss you. I know my father says it looks pretty bad, but if you can, please come back to us. He’s not handling it well at all. I’m sort of frightened actually. We don’t know how to handle each other without you.”

Stupidly it still felt disappointing not to get a response despite knowing that if the doctors couldn’t save her then his awkward plea wouldn’t do anything. Even if she could hear him he’d basically just asked her to come back to her job because they weren’t functional without her which seemed kind of inadequate in terms of terms of convincing someone to survive.

He tried to offer something more hopeful. “Um, Chat Noir wanted to apologise for not saving you. He says he promises he’s going to capture Hawkmoth.”

This was stupid. What would have helped Nathalie is if he'd captured Hawkmoth already, not promise for something he was supposed to be doing anyway and had no idea how to carry out offered as an apology.

* * *

At least his father had seemed to find it as awkward as he had he’d when opened the door to swap their places.

He looked down at the euros he’d given him. He didn’t really want anything to drink but going to the vending machine would at least give him something to do instead of standing awkwardly in the corridor where people kept looking at him as if they were asking what he was doing there. 

He trudged down the corridor in the direction his father had pointed him back towards some sort of waiting area. He stared at the machine feeling deeply uninterested in anything on offer. He looked at the coffee machine next to it, and considered getting one of those. His father didn’t like him drinking caffeine because he claimed it would stunt his growth but his father didn’t realise he had Chat Noir stuff keeping him up at night.

Instead he decided to get a hot chocolate and sat down in one of the chairs to drink it. Just because he’d had no idea what to say to Nathalie didn’t mean his father shared the same issue and he didn’t want to wait outside that door any longer.

There was only so long he could make the small cup last though and once it was done it didn’t seem any less awkward sitting here than standing outside Nathalie’s hospital room door and he started to head back there.

He wanted to pin down Nathalie’s doctors or nurses and ask how she was. Unfortunately Ladybug’s point about him not being Nathalie’s actual relative was technically true even if it still rankled. Not for the first time that he wished he’d been right about how his father and Nathalie’s relationship was developing since his mother had gone.

Still maybe if he looked desolate enough and gave any passing nurse his most innocent eyes he could pretend he was related to Nathalie and find out how she was.

Once he got to Nathalie’s room he leaned against the wall trying not to wonder what was going on the other side but he could just about hear the muffled sound of a voice. Then, he edged towards the door, he did mean to give his father his privacy but he could swear he could hear two voices.

Through the crack in the door small fragments came through. He could just about make out “shouldn’t even”, “believe me” and “impossible”. The latter he was sure was it father but the rest sounded like a woman speaking.

If it this was about Nathalie’s health then Adrien wanted to hear. Maybe he wasn’t a blood relative but his father wasn’t either and he was clearly getting told _something._ Adrien pushed the door open.

“Look, all the indications are good, I don’t know why you won’t accept that M.Agreste.” said a harried looking medical professional.

“Is Nathalie doing better?”

The two of them spun around to see him in the doorway. The unknown woman looked at Adrien’s father, who gestured at him and said “My son, Adrien.”

“Ah, could you please shut the door Adrien.”

Adrien did so. “So is it good news or bad.”

“It’s a complicated case.”

“But you must have some idea.”

“There are positive indicators but I really can’t say anything more.”

Adrien felt himself smile and looked back at his father to share his delight onto to find him frowning.

“Father?”

“Unless you can actually tell us something concrete then please don’t go around unfairly raising my son’s hopes.” His father bit out.

“Perhaps it’s for the best if I go.” She said.

“Yes, I think it is.”

The woman spent left the room but not without rolling her eyes once Adrien’s father couldn’t see.

“Why you aren’t happy it looks like she might be ok?”

“She’s not going to be ok Adrien.”

“But she said”

“Even if Nathalie is improving she looked like she was about to die when she came in, there’s a lot of room between that and normal life. You shouldn’t let yourself think she’ll be back to normal”

“But that’s better than losing her completely isn’t it?”

“Yes, you’re right, but Nathalie might not agree. She’s a very independent person. And, there’s more than that. This condition of hers, they have no idea what it is, and they’ve had plenty of chances to treat it before now, and it’s always failed. I find it difficult to give credence to the idea they’ve suddenly solved it.”

“Oh. I didn’t realise Nathalie had seen so many doctors.”

“Well, you’ve been at school.”

It sounded more like a question than a statement so Adrien didn’t think that was the whole truth but he couldn’t see where the lie was. His father _hadn’t_ been lying about there not being effective medical treatment for Nathalie’s condition.

He wished he had been. If medicine couldn’t help her and he and Ladybug couldn’t then nothing could.

But then his and Ladybug’s weren’t the only Miraculouses out there.

“Father?”

“Yes?”

“Your book on the Miraculouses, does it say anything about what the Butterfly Miraculous can do?”

“I’m sure it does, but all I can show you are the illustrations. Why?”

“Ladybug and Chat Noir can’t do anything, but maybe Hawkmoth could.”

“What do you mean?”

“Couldn’t he make like, a healer akuma or something?”

“That’s a nice idea, but please promise me not to go off in search of Hawkmoth.”

“Chat Noir would be happy to do it for me. He feels really bad about the whole thing.”

“…You didn’t get in contact with the superheroes through the Ladyblogger girl did you? You know them. God, Chloé should have been a sign for me to wake up and realise how close to home they were. ”

“Uh, maybe?”

“Please tell me they didn’t invite you to join them.”

Adrien tried to look innocent but it clearly failed. “They did? How did I not see this, it could have been you in the hospital bed.”

“It’s not like that, Ladybug offered me the Snake Miraculous but I told her someone else would be a better fit and she gave it to Viperion.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

“Oh thank god.”

Adrien decided silence was the best course of action here.

“Do you?” He shook his head. “No, wait, I don’t think I want to know how close you are with the superheroes, don’t tell me anything more. Just give up this idea of using the Butterfly Miraculous, it wouldn’t work anyway.”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Well we’ve never seen any akuma bestow those sort of powers.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, Hawkmoth’s only interested in targeting Ladybug & Chat Noir, he’s got no interest healing anyone.”

“He…no I suppose no one’s seen anything suggesting that.”

“I mean, it’s not like he ever tries to stop his creations hurting anyone. He obviously doesn’t care. Maybe if Mayura had ever got hurt he might try to do something but he's hardly going to try to help anyone else.”

“I think you’re giving him too much credit there.”

“Really? I don’t want to defend him but usually when he turns up it’s to rescue her.”

“If he really cared for her he wouldn’t put her in that situation in the first place. Just forget the whole idea. Hawkmoth’s not going to be any help to Nathalie.”

“Alright.” Adrien sighed. “I just want to do _something_ though.”

“I can understand that. Neither of us are the type to just accept things I think. But, I’m starting to realise that sometimes when we try to fix things we’re only making things worse. I don’t want you to make my mistakes. Forget the Miraculouses.”

In Adrien’s mind targeting Hawkmoth was a pretty different thing to going after Ladybug and Chat Noir, but if he was honest he knew it was equally as futile. He and Ladybug hadn’t been able to work out Hawkmoth’s identify over the last year. There was no reason that would suddenly change just because Adrien had something more to want from the villain.


	4. Chapter 4

In the days after The Conversation Adrien could tell his father was trying at least to be present but this usually meant actually turning up to have dinner with him each night and awkwardly attempting to make conversation. Though calling many of the nights a conversation rather than a monologue seemed like a stretch as generally they seemed to devolve into Adrien almost repeating a school lesson verbatim or laying out an entire fencing practice move by move in attempt to say something while his father just contently listened and rarely commented.

Trying to flip the script by asking about work had been a mistake not repeated again after this resulted in his father stabbing his food hard enough that they were lucky the plate hadn’t chipped and going off about Nathalie’s temporary replacement, who apparently was completely incompetent, and whose only positive trait according to him was that she’d had the tact to absent herself from the house as much as possible and do much of the work remotely as possible. 

While technically this might have achieved Adrien’s aim of making his father talk to him, it really wasn’t the victory he’d been looking for and work had got added to the pile of topics father and son had silently agreed not to discuss along with Nathalie more specifically, Adrien’s mother or the anything relating to the Miraculous. Adrien would have like to have tested the ban on the former two but doing so felt cruel.

Difficult as their dinners were Adrien did appreciate that an effort was being made was even if he still sometimes wistfully thought of his friends’ examples of actually doing things with their parents. He wasn’t expecting to be taken to a football game like Nino went with his dad or anything like that, and he was pretty sure there weren’t going to be any repeats of watching _Solitude,_ but it would be nice to play another duet together.

He knew better than to think it would happen though. Dinner and dinner alone had been apparently been designated as “Adrien-Interaction-Time” on his father’s schedule, so the chances of appearances outside of that were pretty much slim to none.

This meant he was totally unprepared for the knock on his door when he was doing his homework. When no one immediately came in he uncertainly called out “Come in” trying not to make it sound like a question. Usually Nathalie and his father would just enter after knocking unless he called out not to.

His father opened the door and held out an envelope for him. “This is for you.”

Adrien took it uneasily. The envelope had already been opened which wasn’t unusual since his fanmail had to be checked before he saw any of it but this had no address or stamp on it. Instead it just said his name in very familiar writing.

Adrien looked up at his father and only then noticed his red rimmed eyes. “Is this from Nathalie?”

“Yes.” His voice broke “I think she wanted you to have it after she passed away, but I thought you’d want it now.”

“Oh. Why today though? Did you hear something from the hospital?”

“No, no that hospital is full of incompetents anyway. No, I, ah, found them today.”

“Found?”

“Was directed to them, Nathalie had set up an email to be sent to me if she didn’t log into her account for a certain amount of days, which told me where they were.”

“That’s…organised.”

“She always was very organised.” He said shakily leaving Adrien with the unnerving sensation that he was going to see his father cry. “I’ll let you read it.”

Left alone Adrien went over to his desk and sat down. Then he stood up again. It felt wrong to sit and read it in the same place he did his homework, and looked up video cheats online, but then where was the right place to sit when reading someone’s final farewell letter?

He found himself pacing his room rather than actually looking at it.

“You going to read it or not kid?”

“Plagg!”

“I don’t think she’d want you to wear a hole in the floor.”

“OK, look I’ll read it.”

Adrien collapsed on the bed and pulled out the letter.

“Dear Adrien,

I’m sure this is a strange letter to receive. It’s a strange and difficult letter for me to write too. I have hesitated writing this, as I don’t know if you’d even want or need a letter from me, but I wanted to say goodbye and to apologise as I because you deserve that.

I had hoped to explain the situation to you and say much of this in person but if you’re reading this then I’ve not had the chance to. I take comfort in the fact this means the end was swift. I can say this comfortably because I never wanted to keep the situation from you permanently.

If I have hesitated in telling you it is not because I do not care for you, or do not trust you, but because I have always valued your happiness. This may not have always been clear over the years because I have often been the one forcing you off to lessons or activities you didn’t want to do. Some of these you hopefully will be glad for later in life, others I can only hope you don’t blame me too much for. Unfortunately for me I can claim neither the credit or the blame for any of these. Except perhaps in part for not pushing back on your behalf.

I can’t claim that I’ve ever done enough for you to have any claim on your affection. However you have always been very dear to me. I’ve had the privilege of watching you grow up and believe me it has been a privilege. You were always such a smart, loving and well-behaved child and as you’ve grown up you have only continued to retain all these virtues. I regret that I won’t see the young man you will become. You have blossomed since going to school, and encouraging your father to send you there is something I can only count as one of my few positive contributions to your life.

I have failed you in so many ways. 

I wish I had told you what was happening earlier and this letter was not your only explanation.

I wish I had been more confident earlier and done more to help you. You’re more important than a job.

I should have done more to bridge the gap between you and your father. I think you know that he loves you, but I wish I’d pushed him more to show it in a more obvious way. In my absence please feel free to barge on him (unless he’s in a meeting or meeting clients!), he doesn’t mind it anyway near as much as he claims he does. And tell him what you want because he (and admittedly I was little better) doesn’t know.

I had hoped that you would have your mother back before it came to this, but that has obviously not come to fruition. I’m sorry that I was not able to help your father find her for you. I can assure you that he is doing his absolute best to bring her back for you and I hope your family will be reunited one day. 

Love,

Nathalie” 

Adrien sat stunned, he didn’t know what he'd expected the letter to say but he certainly hadn’t expected this.

Some of it was comforting in a way. His father had admitted they should have told him about Nathalie’s illness but that had an admission forced out of him when he could no longer hide it. To hear that at least one of them had wanted to tell him was somewhat gratifying, even if the fact she’d written a letter apologising for not doing so made him wonder if she really ever would have.

If only all the adults in his life weren’t so obsessed with protecting him from the more difficult parts of his life.

It was nice too having confirmation she cared for him. He knew she did of course but neither of them had ever really said it.

But then, things that went unsaid was the theme of the whole letter wasn’t it?

There was a lot there and it was going to take time to process much of it but he couldn’t stop thinking how much happier he and Nathalie, and probably even his father probably could have been if they’d ever just admitted any of these things in the letter. 

He was cross with her. But he also didn’t blame her for all these things she seemed to blame herself for. Between her and his father he wondered if any work any got done in the Atelier or if they just sat there talking about how they were failing him, and didn’t know what to do, and decided the best way to deal with it was to make sure he didn’t actually have any free time.

Of course that was a silly idea. It would have meant some actual communication happening in this house.

He read through it again, trying to make sense of it. Despite his mixed feelings he was glad she’d written it. It wasn’t the same as saying goodbye in person, not at all, but it was something, and something more than he’d ever had the chance to do with his mother.

Besides she’d basically given him permission to interrupt his father more, and he was quite ready to take her up on that.

* * *

Adrien heard a noise in the living room.

“Father?”

He was surprised to see his father perched on a stool trying to recover something from one of their cupboards. Adrien wasn’t really sure why shelves that high even existed because if his father couldn’t reach them without assistance he wasn’t sure who could.

“Adrien.” He acknowledged.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get down some old photo albums. I thought it might be nice to get a portrait of Nathalie for the house, a painting I mean-obviously she’s not in a state to sit for a photo, but I don’t seem to have any good photos for references on my phone.”

“Wouldn’t anything in the photo albums be a bit outdated?”

“I wasn’t going to suggest they copied her outfit from there. Though Nathalie’s always been very consistent in her appearance honestly.”

“Wouldn’t she be younger though?”

“I understand it’s different at your age but trust me when I say adult women have absolutely no objections to appearing younger.”

“Isn’t the painting for us though?” 

“Yes, but you want something the model would be proud of too, I always think that gets you a better end result, don’t you find that with your photoshoots?”

Adrien shrugged. The images chosen for campaigns weren’t always his favourite of the batch, but on the other hand he’d being lying he didn’t think certain times when he’d been uncomfortable hadn’t produced particularly lacklustre results. He tried to be kind to Lila because he knew she was lonely but she did make it difficult.

“Shrugging isn’t an answer Adrien.”

“I guess in my experience if you’re shooting live its better if the model is comfortable.”

“That’s just common sense. Wait. In your experience? When were you not comfortable on set? Nathalie should have told me.” His father said climbing down off the stool and walking over to him.

So much for being able to tell when a model would be proud of the photo.

“It’s not a big deal, I just don’t work well with Lila Rossi I guess.”

“Lila? I thought you two were friends? What did she do?”

There was a lot that could be said there, but he had agreed not to expose her over lying at school, and the akumatisations weren’t her fault.

“It’s just awkward, she likes me I guess but she doesn’t really like my friends.”

“Ah, teenage drama.”

Adrien scowled. “It’s a bit more serious than that.”

“Oh?”

He backpedalled. “I don’t want to talk about it. Honestly at the photoshoots the main issue is just that’s she’s sort of clingy. She’s always touching me when she doesn’t actually have to.”

“Now that is a problem. If her actions are making uncomfortable, then you won’t have any more photoshoots with her, and we can rescind her access to the house. Pity, she seemed like a smart girl.”

“Really? Thank you.” Adrien leapt to take him up on the offer.

His father seemed taken aback. “It’s hardly any hardship for me for me, there’s plenty of young girls who would jump to take her place. I clearly misjudged your relationship.”

“I’m not in a relationship with Lila.”

“No, that’s becoming very apparent.”

“Couldn’t she make problems for us if you drop her?”

“I think Legal & PR can handle problems one teenage girl can create. If you’re worried about school you don’t have to go there you know.”

“You know I like school. And I like my other friends. It’s just Lila.”

“I could get Na” he cut himself off “someone to ring the school about keeping her away from you if you want.”

The mention of Nathalie dampened the mood but Adrien couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, this wouldn’t technically be him doing anything, “What would you even say though? And that would upset her too, she’s spent so much effort befriending my class.”

“It wouldn’t be difficult and I’m sure she’d be fine. She struck me as a very talented girl, she reminded me a bit of your mother actually. If only the two of you were a year or two older I’d put her on the catwalk and call in a few favours with other houses to get her on theirs and she wouldn’t have the time to think about you.”

The idea that _Lila_ of all people was anything like his mother was ridiculous to Adrien, if he’d ever wondered if his father’s people skills had atrophied in his seclusion since his mother disappeared this seemed like pretty clear proof.

“Adrien? That’s a very unattractive facial expression you know.”

Adrien forced his face to relax from how it had screwed up at the comparison.

“Did you get down the albums you wanted then?” he said changing the subject.

“Yes.” Said his father giving him very little to work with.

“Can I see them?”

“Of course. You can help me pick them out.”

“Thanks.”

His father pushed a pile of them over to him. “You can start with these ones”.

As he went through the photos, Adrien was surprised how enjoyable how he found it. It was weird seeing his parents, Nathalie, and other people he knew when they were younger. Apparently Chloé’s mother had sometimes even taken off her sunglasses in the past. There were even pictures of a younger Adrien as a baby.

And his father was surprisingly relaxed about it all. He was strict about the photos he accepted of Nathalie for his reference pile but apart from that it was one of them most pleasant conversation Adrien had had with him since his mother was here. He could be pushed to expand on some of the stories behind some of the photographs and he hadn’t even shut down when Adrien had laughed at some of the outfits.

“You know” said Adrien “You’re better with me than you think.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way you talked before it was like Maman did everything. And she did a lot and I did see her more than you, but I saw you too more before she left.”

“Because she made sure of that.”

“She can’t have told you what to do all the time though. I mean you’re doing fine now.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah, this is nice. I just wish it wasn’t because,” Adrien trailed off.

“Yes, well, this has been something of a wake up call for me. If only Nathalie was here to see it.” his father said.

“Do you think the photos we’ve got at any good?”

“No, not really. I hoped they’d be more but most of these albums these are too early for her time working for me, we already had you when I hired her.”

They both looked at the pile. It was disappointingly small.

“I suppose there is her work ID” his father sighed “or there might be something of her with me in the paparazzi archives if I look what’s available to buy online.”

“I’ve some photos on my phone. I mean I’m not sure they’d be of use, and she probably wouldn’t appreciate you using the ones on my Instagram but.”

“You have an Instagram account?”

“Um, yeah? I thought you knew? Someone in marketing thought it was a good idea, Nathalie helped me set it up. “

“Ah. I must have been told and forgotten. What’s it called?”

Relief rushed through him at this easy acceptance. “It’s @AdrienAgresteBrand, I’ve a verified checkmark and everything.” 

“I’ll have to take a look at it.”

Adrien froze as he fully processed the implications that his father had never looked at his Instagram account before, and that he might not actually approve of all the photos on there after all. There wasn’t anything controversial he didn’t think, someone from the company must monitor it and Nathalie knew about it and had never asked him to take anything down, but she wasn’t his father and ever since the incident Adrien was started to realise he had no idea what response he was likely to have to anything.

At least there was nothing to do with his Miraculous on there?

* * *

Adrien stared at Nathalie’s letter trying to work out what to do with it. He wasn’t going to just throw it away, not when it was likely the last thing she’d ever say to him. He did have a pretty organised system where he stored his school work and music due to her influence, but putting it in with those didn’t seem right either.

There was his bookcase but putting it in between two books seemed like an easy way to lose or damage it. Putting it in a book made more sense, but choosing one wasn’t easy. The obvious solution was picking one Nathalie had picked out for him but she’d chosen lots of his books.

Eventually he settled on the last one she’d given him and folded the letter and slipped it between two pages before placing the book back on the shelf. He was surprised at how satisfied he was with his decision.

Only once he left the bookcase that satisfaction quickly fell away. Nathalie was still dying. Hawkmoth was still out there. This wasn’t exactly a thrilling victory.

Lost in his own turmoil he didn’t even notice the white butterfly which floating in through his open window.

The sensation of another presence watching him though, was immediate once it touched him.

He jolted and looked around but no one was in his room and this felt like something more than just being watched. It felt like clarity, like someone recognised how he felt, and agreed and wanted to help him.

“Hello?” he called out uncertainly fiddling with his ring. Had there been an attack? Some akuma with telepathic powers?

The sensation started to pull away, seemingly slowly, though it must have only taken micro-seconds. Simultaneously a suspicion grew in his mind, despite the fact it didn’t make any sense.

“No, Hello Stupid Akuma Name, I’m Hawkmoth?” he ventured trying to sound braver than he felt.

The retreat halted and Adrien felt a sense of triumph. Avoiding akumatisation _should_ have been his top priority but Hawkmoth didn’t seem to be actively trying to akumatise him and Adrien had things to say.

“No. Now calm down and let go of your hold on my akuma.”

Confusion displaced anger as his driving force. He’d never heard of anything like this before. Though Hawkmoth had been erratic recently. That last night-time incident had started oddly too according to the victim.

“My hold? You’re the one attacking _me._ ”

“You weren’t actually my target believe it or not. You might have noticed me trying to pull away. You’re the one maintaining this connection now.”

“You have targets?”

“Usually. The butterflies are drawn to strong emotions, that’s not a secret. Now let’s finish this conversation.”

“I’m not ready to finish. If I wasn’t your target who was?”

Hawkmoth didn’t reply.

“If you weren’t aiming for me then it has to be someone close by.”

Hawkmoth was silent again.

“If you don’t tell me why should I release you to attack someone else?”

“Do you _want_ to be akumatised?” Hawkmoth asked, confusion audible in his voice.

“No, no one wants to be akumatised. You just make them feel they do.”

“Is that what they all tell you? And people call me the liar.”

“Really not helping your case on making me trust you.”

“Cards on the table then. I don’t want to akumatise you, you’re not a good candidate, and I’d like to end this conversation. In return I’ll give up on the person I was going to target tonight.”

In a world where he could have trusted Hawkmoth it would have been a good offer. Even here there wasn’t much else he could do, but the question of who Hawkmoth meant to akumatise kept swirling round in his mind. Why the Collector would suit whatever plan Hawkmoth had he didn’t know but, “Was it my father again?”

“What?”

“Where you aiming for my father again?”

Hawkmoth’s voice sounded oddly strangled “If you must know, yes. Are you happy now?”

“Happy? How could I be happy? _Haven’t you done enough to my family?_ You’ve killed Nathalie and now you want to take advantage of the pain you’ve created. The only way you could be an even worse person is if you caused my mother’s disappearance too. _”_

Letting it all out actually helped but his unease began to build again as the villain once again failed to reply immediately. He wanted to believe that it was just that Ladybug was right and Hawkmoth just wasn’t used to inflicting lasting consequences but recently he hadn’t been that lucky.

“…did you kidnap my mother?”

“No. No I didn’t kidnap your mother.”

Adrien breathed a sigh of relief. At least Chat Noir failing to capture Hawkmoth wasn’t failing her too.

“I supposed we’d know if you had, there’d be a ransom demand asking for the Miraculouses or something. You’re still a terrible person though.”

“That’s fair.”

“If you know that, why do you do it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“If you know what you’re doing is wrong, then why do you do it?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Of course. Is that because you’re worried about your identify or because you know it’s not worth what you’ve done?”

Hawkmoth sighed “I would have always said the former before, but” and now he sounded startling defeated “I’m starting to wonder about the latter too. I am sorry about Nathalie. None of this was meant to hurt people permanently.”

He tried not to laugh, Miraculous Ladybug might fix all of the physical remnants of akuma attacks but nothing was going to fix the scars it left on Parisian’s souls.

The supervillain inhaled as if he was shocked and Adrien realised that he’d forgotten that Hawkmoth’s powers were empathy not just telepathy, and that he must have felt Adrien’s reaction.

Yet surely that was a good thing. If Hawkmoth was losing his drive then maybe the Akumas would trickle off. Maybe there was hope for something else too, even if Ladybug would kill him if she ever found out.

“If you feel so badly about it, can’t you akumatise me into a like a super-doctor to something to make her better?”

“I’m sorry child. I’ve tried, but only the Ladybug Miraculous has healing abilities. You’d have to ask its wielder.”

“Figures.” Adrien groaned.

Nothing more came from the supervillain and suddenly Adrien realised the constant sensation of being seen that had permeating their conversation had gone. He must have lost his desire to hold onto Hawkmoth when he confirmed he couldn’t help Nathalie.

But despite that blow he still felt sort of hopeful. He’d never had expected Hawkmoth to sound like that. It was so unlike the man they encountered in their fights. He still thought it pretty unlikely that he’d give up but if he was distracted and lacking motivation that had to make him easier to beat. Maybe he couldn’t save Nathalie, but maybe he could make her loss mean something.

Suddenly he started upright. Hawkmoth had been trying to akumatise his father! Here he was sat up here and meanwhile his father was downstairs alone in enough emotional distress to attract an akuma.

He ran downstairs and caught his father coming out his atelier. He looked stressed, though admittedly he always looked stressed these days but Adrien ran straight at him with a hug regardless. His father might have collected himself enough that the Akuma went for Adrien instead but he’d still been upset enough to catch Hawkmoth’s attention in the first place. 

“Adrien?”

Adrien loosened his hold a bit to look up at his father, “are you alright?”

“I think I should be the one asking you that. What brought this on?”

Adrien’s first instinct was to lie, but he just wanted to tell the truth for once. “Hawkmoth. He almost akumatised me, but apparently he was aiming for you.”

His father tensed. “Did he hurt you? I didn’t realise people could resist being akumatised.”

“I’m fine. I don’t think he was trying very hard. What about you?”

“Me?”

“You’re the one the butterfly was attracted to originally.”

“Not for very long it doesn’t seem.”

Adrien pulled back and attempted to use the same expression on his father that he always used on Adrien when waiting for the truth. No doubt it was less impressive when looking up rather than down at someone but it seemed to have some effect.

His father admitted “I was thinking about Nathalie if you must know. It’s hard not to wonder if there might have been a way to save her before this. Now what were you feeling to attract an akuma?”

“I was thinking about her too. I was reading her letter, and I felt bad that maybe she didn’t know how much she meant to us.”

His father swallowed as if he was about to cry and he regretted saying anything, but when his father spoke his voice was even and certain. “None of that’s your fault and she wouldn’t want you to think that. If anything, all of that’s on me. Maybe I shouldn’t have given you the letter.”

Concern turned to indignation, “You couldn’t have not given me the letter. She wrote that for me. Wait” he remembered how it had been opened when he received it. “You read it didn’t you?”

“She would have expected me to. She knows me well enough.” His father excused himself.

Adrien still didn’t feel that convinced. “If you say so.”

His father placed a hand on Adrien’s shoulder “Are you feeling alright now?”

“I guess so. Do you know Hawkmoth tried to apologise to me?”

“Did he? That doesn’t seem like it’s worth much. An apology from a villain.”

“You wouldn’t think so would you? But I actually kind of believed him. I know it’s hoping for too much but wouldn’t be great if this made him reconsider everything? I’m sure Nathalie would be delighted.”

“Yes, yes I’m sure she would be, but you shouldn’t get your hopes up Adrien. Hawkmoth doesn’t seem like a man to be trusted. Now, shouldn’t you be going to bed?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel:...I mean what's the harm in trying Adrien's healing akuma idea, Nathalie is still alive, after all, and if I try to akumatise myself no one will know if it fails  
> Akuma: *fails*  
> Gabriel: :(  
> Akuma: *flies off.*  
> Gabriel: I know I said I'd stop but I owe her to try one more time  
> Akuma: *goes for Adrien.*  
> Gabriel: 😱


	5. Chapter 5

It was down to pure luck and the Parisian traffic that Adrien and his father were trapped in the car together when his mobile rang, on the way back from an exhibit opening. Apparently dubious of his new assistant’s ability to accompany Adrien and hold a tablet, and incapable of cancelling everything on his social calendar his father had deigned to actually go himself. However his patience didn’t last to staying at said event and they'd left early, only to find themselves in a stationary traffic jam.

His father took his phone out but didn’t immediately hit answer. From his seat Adrien could just about see the screen showed a number rather than a name. Apparently the number was recognised though because his father picked it up with an irritated “Yes.”

The voice on the other end was too indistinct to make up but it didn’t seem to be a business call. His father’s eyes widened in something that looked like hope for a second, before shutting down again.

“Are you sure?”

More mumbling came from the other end of the phone.

“And this isn’t a one off?”

“When can we see her?”

It had to be about Nathalie. He wanted to believe it was good news but his father had been pretty vehement before that there wouldn’t be any real good news. Knowing this didn’t make it any easier not to try to listen into the conversation but no real clues were forthcoming. 

Finishing the conversation his father turned to look at him. “You could at least pretend not to eavesdrop Adrien.”

He shrugged. “How’s Nathalie?”

“She regained consciousness for a few minutes today.”

“That’s good isn’t it?”

“In the short term yes.”

“So are we going to go see her?”

“Adrien. She’s not in a state for conversation. The doctors believe that she will have increased aware periods over time, but she’ll be very confused, and she won’t be talking immediately.”

“Shouldn’t someone be there for her though?”

“That’s why the medical staff are there. We can’t be there all the time Adrien. We’ve commitments to uphold. I believe you keep telling me you do want to go to school. If anything changes we can go, but we’ll only be in the way now.”

“If you say so. I think she’d like us to be there though even if we can’t do anything.”

Immediately he regretted saying the last part of the sentence as it clearly hit a nerve. It was foolish to bring it up when they were both trying to not think about possible magical solutions. His father didn’t verbally respond though instead suddenly apparently finding the dim view out the window fascinating.

* * *

Any late night denizens of Paris would have seen Chat Noir making his way across the rooftops to the Eiffel Tower that night. Adrien liked to reach their rendez-vous before Ladybug. He wanted to impress her, not annoy her by being late or giving the wrong impression he wasn’t punctual. It wasn’t possible to never keep her waiting with akuma attacks given he always had to escape the people he was with, so he liked to make sure he didn’t when he could.

He slowed down when he saw someone already standing in their normal place.

It wasn’t Ladybug.

“Freeze.”

Hawkmoth held his hands up in surrender. “I’m not here to fight you.”

“I’m not falling for your tricks.” Adrien spat out. For some reason seeing Hawkmoth in person annoyed him far more than it done talking to him the other night. Or maybe the reason was fairly obvious, the last time Hawkmoth hadn’t fought them normally it had ended up with Nathalie in hospital.

“There’s no trick. I want to talk.”

“See, I don’t think that’s your decision to make. I’d hate to disappoint all of Paris by letting you get away.” Adrien said refusing to let his guard down this time. It had been stupid to think that his conversation with Hawkmoth was going to mean they wouldn’t have to deal with him for a while.

“Where’s your partner? She’s the brains of this operation isn’t she?”

“Excuse me if I don’t say thanks for the compliment. What are you here for?” Ladybug’s voice echoed down to them.”

They looked up in unison. Ladybug was perched a few levels above them. She must have seen Hawkmoth and held off from joining them. Smart of her. At least this way only one of them would fall into whatever trap the villain was planning for them.

Hawkmoth reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can you just come down here?”

“I’m quite happy to stay up here actually.”

Despite his own anger Adrien couldn’t stop himself laughing at Hawkmoth’s annoyed expression. “Not used to having to look up at other people?”

“A height joke. How original. This is very immature behaviour for so-called heroes.”

“That’s rich coming from you.” Said Ladybug “We’re not the adult man ruining everyone’s lives to get what he wants, because he’s more self-centred than a toddler.”

Adrien fought his instinctive reaction to tense up waiting for Hawkmoth’s response putting everything he’d learnt from Chat Noir-ing and fencing into staying loose and ready to response to anything.

Hawkmoth apparently wasn’t so well trained. His grip on his cane tightened such that Adrien would have been happy to bet that beneath his gloves his knuckles were white.

Slowly he relaxed his fingers “That’s, not unfair I suppose from your perspective.”

“What?” Adrien couldn’t stop himself from blurting out. It wasn’t so different from what Hawkmoth had said to him-as-Adrien that night, but it was still a surprise. Admitting something to Adrien was very different to admitting it to Chat Noir. Was this just some way to get them to hold off on attacking or did Hawkmoth really mean it?

He looked at Ladybug who seemed equally flummoxed even if she’d been able to avoid an audible reaction.

“Are you?” She shook her head “What are you here for Hawkmoth?”

“I’ve something for you.”

“A trap?”

“No, not a trap. Look, I’ll get it out for you. Don’t flinch.”

It was actually hard not to flinch when the villain reached down into his pocket like a guy in a Hollywood movie reaching for a gun. That their outfits could have pockets was news to Adrien and he wanted to complain at Plagg for not telling him this. Though where in his outfit you could put a pocket and not have added bulk he wasn’t sure. Hawkmoth’s suit seemed to accommodate it fine though and it wasn’t that much less fitting than his cat-suit.

A small jewellery-box was revealed in the villain’s hand.

The joke was impossible to give up. “I know the Eiffel Tower is a romantic place for proposals, but I’m afraid our hearts are both taken.” If not mutually by each other however much he wished it, but he wasn’t telling Hawkmoth that.

“If you could just stop with your asinine comments for one minute” Hawkmoth snapped.

The man opened the box to reveal a fan-shaped brooch. _Mayura’s_ brooch Adrien realised a second later.

“Chat!” Ladybug’s yell interrupted him before he had even realised he’d been reaching for it. He yanked his hand back immediately.

“We’re not falling for your trick.” He added.

“It’s not a trick!” said Hawkmoth.

“Of course you’d say that.” Adrien said.

Ladybug interrupted. “Why should we trust you?”

“I don’t want it anymore. I need you to take it.”

“What do you mean you need us to take it? Where’s Mayura?” Ladybug asked.

“Nowhere relevant.”

“I don’t know, it seems pretty relevant to me.” Snarked Adrien.

“She’s why I’m” Hawkmoth broke off “Look it doesn’t matter, I’m just going to leave it here for you.” He carefully placed the brooch on the girder they were standing on.

Ladybug replied “I think it does matter. Why are you giving this to us?”

Hawkmoth didn’t respond immediately. Even his silver mask couldn’t hide the consideration on his face. Then he said “It hurts people. The Peacock Miraculous. You deserve to know that before you give it to one of your little friends.”

“We know? Both your miraculouses hurt people the way you use them.”

“You stupid girl, It hurts the _user_. It’s broken”

The implication hit Adrien like a truck. “It hurt Mayura didn’t it? God. I knew you didn’t care about other people, I hope you don’t have a kid because I’m dubious you could love one, but I at least thought you had the basic human decency not to deliberately harm your partner.”

“It wasn’t deliberate!”

“What, you didn’t know what it did?”

Hawkmoth didn’t respond.

“Didn’t think so.”

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“I think it changes everything.”

Ladybug saw something he’d missed. “When did you know?”

“Too late, but knowing didn’t stop anything, I couldn’t stop ei” he cut himself off “her. So I tried to fix it. I thought I had fixed it but it’s not better. She’s not better. So. I can’t keep it away from her, you can.” He laughed almost hysterically, “Or at least I’m hoping you can. You’ve kept the Cat and Ladybug away from me for long enough, I’ll be disappointed if you can’t keep this away from her.”

Then he launched himself off the ledge.

The dull sound of a person hitting a metallic surface came from below, and a for a moment some slight concern for his enemy entered Adrien’s heart, before it was followed by another quieter noise confirming said enemy was in fact carefully making his way down the tower whatever his emotional distress. 

Leaning of the edge, Adrien attempted to see where he’d gone, despite the lighting which illuminated the tower from below there were plenty of shadows inside the structure itself and even with Chat Noir’s enhanced vision it wasn’t possible to pick out the supervillain. He could no longer hear Hawkmoth but it was just as possible that he’d halted his descent, as that his retreat wasn’t a lie, and he’d gone too far away to hear.

The Peacock Miraculous stubbornly continued to exist, impossibly abandoned on the tower. 

“Well. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to go after him.” Even Adrien could see that was either pointless or a trap, however much Ladybug had a point about him not thinking things through, “But what do we do about this?”

Labybug swung down closer to him but she refrained from actually joining him and the jewel on the girder.

“I don’t know. I’ve no chance of telling whether it’s the real thing without picking it up, but”

“It’s Hawkmoth, so it’s probably a trap.”

She nodded miserably, “He sounded sincere, but he must be convincing when he akumatises people too.”

That was a point. Though he couldn’t say he’d seemed great at convincing people of anything when Hawkmoth had tried to akumatise him. Still, “If it is a trap though, don’t we have to spring it?”

“What do you mean?”

“We just can’t leave it here can we?”

She saw what he was saying immediately “If it is the Peacock then it’s our duty to stop anyone getting their hands on it-whether it’s dangerous to the user or not, and if it’s a trap then we can’t let anyone else get caught in it.”

“Exactly.”

He started to slowly edge towards the brooch. Nothing happened and he slowly realised the breath he was holding in. He carefully extending a hand towards the brooch ready to pull it back if anything happened.

“Chat! Stop that right now!”

She was too late. He reached out and touched the brooch almost before she’d finished talking.

“Not a trap, I think” he said picking it up. “Or at least not an immediately acting one.”

She finally jumped down to him. “You idiot, you could have been hurt.”

“We just agreed we had to do it.”

“Not like that! We could have figured out a safe way.”

“How? We don’t have indefinite time and it was totally fine.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes. “You have to stop endangering yourself. We’ve in this together, ok?”

“OK.” He said to more to placate her than anything else. Whatever she thought he didn’t seek out danger but if it came to possible injury to him or her, then the choice was obvious.”

Apparently she was getting better at picking up on his lies. “I mean it. Now give me the brooch.”

He instinctively hesitated.

“So you’re not convinced it’s safe after all then?” 

He looked down unable to meet her eyes but held the brooch out “Sorry, my lady, but you won’t use it will you?”

“Oh, no of course not, you should have said that was what you were worried about. I’d like to coax the Kwami out but I’m not putting this on until we’re sure it’s safe.”

“Good.”

“I wish I knew why Hawkmoth’s giving this up now though.”

Adrien looked at her in confusion. That seemed obvious, Hawkmoth had basically said he was doing for Mayura’s sake.

Then before he spoke he remembered his father’s criticism of Hawkmoth-that he willingly endangered Mayura all the time, and hadn’t he turned out to be more right than he could have possibly know?

Hawkmoth had admitted he’d known that the Peacock Miraculous was harming Mayura and that he’d continued to let her use it regardless. He’d also claimed he’d tried to stop her but they’d never been any sign of that in any of their battles. She was always appearing to fight them.

Until now.

So something had to have changed.

“Either they’re had a falling out and he doesn’t trust her anymore and this is just a way to get us to take it but not use it, or whatever it does to her has just gone really really wrong and it’s finally forced him to stop her using it.”

“I wish he’d said what it did, rather than leaving it to our imaginations. Is it bad I kind of feel sorry for her despite everything?”

“I think that just means you’re a really good person.”

“I wish we knew what he wanted from all this.”

“Me too. If this is the Peacock Miraculous then maybe he’s reconsidering it.”

“I hope so.” Said Adrien unwilling to upset Ladybug but he felt unsure. Giving up the Peacock Miraculous _was_ a good sign, but if whatever happened to Mayura, and Hawkmoth’s apparent slow growth of the start of a conscience about other people wasn’t enough to make him give up the Butterfly Miraculous then what would be?

And until he gave up the Butterfly Miraculous how could Paris ever be safe?

* * *

The sound of the car starting up startled Adrien.

It was harder to get information out of his father’s new assistant than it had been with Nathalie. Partially because she was doing her best to spend as little time near his father as humanly possible while still doing her job, and that unfortunately meant she wasn’t usually available for him to ask about anything. Additionally she was terrified of his father and therefore far less likely than Nathalie had been to tell Adrien anything about his schedule.

Still. The evening was an odd time of the day to have a meeting, and he was pretty sure that he would have known if there was any sort of formal event on, and the idea of his father leaving the house for anything other than work was laughable. He’d attended parents’ evening by sending Nathalie with his tablet for goodness sake.

There was one other place that his father had been going recently but he knew how much Adrien wanted to see Nathalie too if he was going to the hospital he ought to bring him along. 

He resolved to watch his father’s movements more closely.

* * *

“How’s Nathalie?” Adrien chanced at dinner. He was aware he was transgressing on the unwritten rules that they’d established to keep the peace at dinner, but that was before the news that Nathalie was improving, and before his father had maybe started going to visit her without him.

“Improving.” His father replied unhelpfully.

“Like, being awake for longer periods of time improving, or talking now improving, or what?”

“Please tell me this isn’t how you always talk when I’m not here.”

Adrien glared at him.

“She’s starting to have long enough periods of consciousness that she’s managed to say a few words.”

“And was she glad to see you?”

“She” he cut himself off. “Adrien if you’ve something you want to say then I’d prefer you to just come out and say it.”

“You’re going to the hospital without me.”

“Yes.”

Regardless of how difficult his father claimed to find it to understand him Adrien was pretty sure his father knew full well he'd been looking for a more extensive answer than that.

“You know I want to see her too.”

“You can see Nathalie when she’s recovered enough to be consistently aware of where she is and who you are. I don’t want to get either of you upset.”

Adrien didn’t understand why his father thought seeing Nathalie sometimes awake would be worse than seeing her unconscious but he was aware that arguing further might only make him hold off even longer.

“Do you promise?”

“Yes. Of course.” He seemed oddly relieved.

* * *

“What do you mean the Peacock Miraculous seems fine?”

“I mean” Ladybug said “There’s nothing obviously wrong with it.”

“But, I don’t understand, why would Hawkmoth give it up then? Why make up this story about Mayura?” None of this made any sense. Clearly he was worse at telling when Hawkmoth was being honest or not than he’d thought.

“I don’t know! I’ve thought and I’ve thought and I can’t see what trap he could possibly have laid with it.” She said frantically.

“What does the Guardian think?”

She threw her arms out in the air. “I’ve no idea! Because he’s gone off to wherever to live his life and left me with all his responsibilities and I don’t know what’s going on at all, and I have no idea of what I’m meant to do.”

“Oh god.” He said almost as horrified at how lost Ladybug looked as much as at what she’d just told him.

“Yeah that’s about right” she managed though clearly trying to hold back tears.

“I had no idea.” He couldn’t believe his friend had been carrying all this on her own back alone, and he hadn’t even noticed. That was hardly the actions of a good partner.

“Well, no you weren’t meant to. I wasn’t supposed to have told you, I shouldn’t have told you know, what if Hawkmoth captures you?”

That was a concerning idea and he shouldn’t be her first priority but, “I think you’re still fine.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have no idea who you are underneath that mask, so I can’t lead him to you. And it’s _our_ Miraculouses he wants specifically, not any of them in general so I don’t think you’ve really made the target on your back any larger.”

“That’s the least reassuring reassurance I’ve heard in years, but thanks for trying anyway Kitty.”

He really had thought that would have been more helpful, though in his defence it’s not like he’d had that many examples, of what was considered normal to comfort people.

He tried again, “Seriously though Ladybug, if there is anything I can do for you to help please let me know. I know our identities are important but you shouldn’t have to deal with all of this by yourself.”

“That does help a lot actually. I know I was the one trusted with this for a reason but, it's already difficult not being able to talk about being Ladybug anyone, this on top is,”

“A lot.” He finished. “I know you can’t talk to me about everything with being Ladybug, not with our identities but, I want to be able to help you with this.”

“Thanks.” She smiled weakly.

“And just, don’t do anything with the Peacock Miraculous without further study. Paris needs you.”

“Just Paris?” she asked.

“Well it goes without saying that I need you Bugaboo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adrien & Gabriel are blissfully unaware that they are two identify reveals away from Father-Son bonding time on how to stop people you care about from using the Peacock Miraculous. 
> 
> Gabriel: so we put it in a safe, then we cover the safe in concrete, and then we hire a helicopter, and then we drop it deep in the ocean.
> 
> Adrien: ... idk, are we going far enough to hide this here.


	6. Chapter 6

In the end Adrien hadn’t had to wait anywhere near as long as he’d been concerned about for his father to let him see Nathalie. Apparently the doctors were utterly mystified by the speed of her recovery.

Seeing her sat up in the bed he realised he hadn’t really believed that she was going to be okay until this moment.

“Nathalie!”

“Adrien” She smiled.

“Can I hug you?”

“Um, I think it should be ok if you’re gentle.”

He was careful not to put any weight on her when he leant across to do so. It couldn’t quite be a proper hug like that but it was more than he’d expected to be able to do for weeks.

“I’m so glad you’re alright.”

“Me too.”

Adrien pulled back, “Will you tell me if you start getting ill again? I know you said in your letter you didn’t want to upset me, but I would prefer to know.”

She pushed herself further up in the bed. “Your father gave you the letter?”

“Yeah, is that not ok? You did write it for me right?”

“I did, I just...didn’t expect to be here after you read it. I'm sorry if I've made things awkward.”

“What? No! I liked the letter. Like I said you should have told me you were ill before, but when I thought I wasn’t going to see you again it was comforting to actually have a goodbye. Even if it was one-sided.’

“Still, if I overstepped any boundaries...”

“I think Adrien just told you that you didn’t.” said his father.

“Father’s right.”

Nathalie's eyes darted between them in confusion.

“Besides there was nothing objectionable in it.” His father continued.

“Sorry Nathalie, he read it before giving it to me.”

“It’s alright. I expected that.”

“I read all the letters.” His father added.

That there were other letters had never been mentioned to Adrien, though perhaps it had been self-centred of him to presume that they were the only people Nathalie might have written to.

“What?” Nathalie apparently hadn’t expected his father to read _those_ letters because she had gone as white as the hospital sheets. “I wrote different letters for different scenarios for a reason, sir, I hardly expected you to give Adrien one of his without checking the content, but I thought it was very obvious you were only supposed to open the applicable ones, I colour-coded them, I made a flowchart to explain it.”

“Wait” Adrien said as his mind tried to make sense of this “you wrote multiple letters to _us_?”

It did maybe reconcile her telling him in the letter that she’d meant to tell him about her illness only to write a letter where she didn’t. Maybe she had written another version where she had told him. He wasn’t sure what _other_ scenarios there could have been though.

“Yes,” She waved it off as this was totally normal “But you were only supposed to read one each. I thought your father capable of reading a flowchart.”

“I think” said his father. “That we have both been labouring under certain misconceptions that would be better discussed later, in private, but I do want to make very clear that I never would have asked of you what you seem to think I expected. I hadn’t said so before because I wasn’t sure you were well enough to understand my meaning, but I think you are now.”

Nathalie’s eye’s widened. “I um, I mean, uh.” she paused trying to find the right words before settling on “I don’t suppose we could just forget it all, sir?”

“I don’t think we can.” Here he refuted the tone of his voice and smiled which bizarrely seemed to terrify Nathalie “and I think it’s a little late to call me sir at this point.”

“Then I agree it would be more appropriate to discuss it without Adrien’s presence, yes.”

“I can give you privacy if you want” offered Adrien eager to exit whatever was going on here. He hoped this was some sort of weird romantic moment because, as much as that made him despair of his father if this was his idea of a romantic confession, that at least was a positive explanation for whatever they were talking around. Besides why else would they need him out of the way, he was hardly a threat to any confidential business stuff.

“That’s very sweet Adrien but It this isn’t really a suitable place to have this discussion.” Nathalie said.

“We can table it until you get home if you want. I don’t want to stress you out when you’re recovering, but I wanted you to know.” His father replied.

“I’d like that.” She said softly.

* * *

They were sat in the car on the way to visit Nathalie again when his father suddenly spoke “I’ve a job for you Adrien”

“Ok?” he said unsure where this is going.

“I need you to tell Nathalie that you miss her and you want her home. At our home that is.”

“I was going to do most of that anyway, why are you asking me to do it?”

“There’s been disagreements about her discharge date and where she should go afterward. She wants to go back to her apartment despite the fact there’s no one else to help her. I’d feel better if she was at ours where I can assure she’s alright and has all the support she needs. I hope you can agree I’m in the right?”

“Um, yeah, definitely.” Said Adrien even though while he did agree with his father in practice and wanted Nathalie to have the best recovery she could have, he was a bit uncertain how Nathalie would take his father trying to organise her life. He knew it was part of how his father cared for people but he’d chafed at it often enough and he’d never lived his own life uncontrolled by his father the way Nathalie had.

“Are you sure you don’t just want me to ask her to come home with us? Instead of hinting around it.”

“Do you think that would work? I was hoping you’d just put her in the right frame of mind for when I raised the issue with her again, but you do have a defter hand with people than I do. You’ve certainly been good at convincing me of things.”

“I think she’ll be suspicious if I start talking to her about wanting her home and then you bring it up. It’s probably better if I do just ask her to come home to our house until she’s recovered.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

* * *

They convince her eventually. It’s a joint effort but she isn’t able to resist both of them.

Adrien feels a little guilty that maybe Nathalie would have put up more of an effort against them if she was well.

His father doesn’t seem to feel guilty at all. When Adrien mentions this to him, he just says that if Nathalie was well then they wouldn’t need to convince her.

She seemed happy enough to be set up in one of the guest rooms, but as she slowly regained more energy she became less happy at his father’s attempts to ensure she didn’t leave it, or at least didn’t leave it without anyone else.

For someone who’d been telling Adrien they couldn’t trust what the hospital was saying, and that all the doctors didn’t know anything about Nathalie’s condition he’d suddenly become a convert to following their entire recovery plan, even though Nathalie seemed to be recovering much quicker than it indicated.

For all his concern though Adrien couldn’t tell if he’d been right about what they’d been talking around in the hospital room. Or indeed if they’d even discussed it.

Annoyingly both of them were smart enough and fond enough of their privacy that if they had had some big discussion he was fairly certain they definitely would have had it when he was out of the house.

He’d had his suspicions of the time he’d come back from a late fencing practise and gone to check in on Nathalie to find her and his father asleep. Not that his father had meant to fall asleep there clearly given he was above the sheets and still mostly sat up against the headboard.

Unfortunately how much this meant was unclear since his father had an impressive ability to fall asleep anywhere, and was completely capable to going into talk to Nathalie, not noticing she’d fallen asleep and then falling asleep himself mid-sentence.

Maybe their behaviour had changed slightly but there was nothing that Nathalie nearly dying and the upheaval of his father trying to help her rather her helping him didn’t explain in itself.

After all both of them were acting differently towards him too. He’d been worried his relationship with his father would regress once Nathalie was better but it seemed to be maintaining this new level. And Nathalie was somewhat more open with him though he supposed that was difficult to avoid now he’d read the letter.

He wished he could have read the other letters she’d written him too, but the suggestion had brought up such an expression of horror from Nathalie that he’d never brought it up again. That was fair enough given that they were her letters but he did think his father’s reprimand for infringing on Nathalie’s privacy by asking was rather hypocritical.

Then again, defending people’s privacy from others while ignoring those boundaries himself yet again wasn’t different behaviour on his father’s part to be indicative of anything.

They were more physical perhaps, but Nathalie had been one of the few people whose touch his father had accepted before, and besides Adrien too was often reaching for Nathalie these days and had probably given her more hugs since she’d come back to them than, well, ever. When you almost lost someone it was natural to reassure yourself they were still here through touch.

The idea of asking either of them was completely off the table. The last time he’d tried that his father had blown up at him, and he didn’t want to mortify Nathalie if he was barking up completely the wrong tree.

And he knew they were due their privacy, it was just that, he’d like to know what his family was going to look like going forward.

* * *

He was enjoying having Nathalie around the house again. It was nicer than before actually. He was sure it would change once she returned to work, and went back to living at her apartment, but it was nice just having her around without her having to chivvy him along to photoshoots.

For now though she had time to sit down in living room with him and listen as he practised the piano. She wasn’t actually there for that, she’d been reading in there when he came in apparently sick of his father’s attempts to keep her safe in her room, but she’d told him not to be silly when he suggested he’d be disturbing her.

It was more comfortable than when his father sometimes watched. Adrien liked it when the two of them played together but when it was just him performing he was always on edge that he’d show himself up by making mistakes.

Nathalie just seemed to enjoy the music. Sometimes asking the name of a piece she particularly liked.

When he reached the end of his normal practise time, and was about to head off to do his homework she interrupted.

“Adrien?”

“Hmm?”

“Where did the portrait in the hall go?”

“Storage I guess. I don’t think my father picked anywhere to relocate it to.”

“Is he putting the old family portrait back there instead?”

They hadn’t actually mentioned the painting of Nathalie to Nathalie he realised, and in retrospect, maybe this was a weird place to hang it. He hadn’t really thought about how it would look, too glad to get rid of the oppressive mourning photo. It would look like a declaration, and if his father hadn’t made one, then even if Adrien was right in his suspicions it wasn’t his declaration to make.

“No, he was getting a new one.” 

Nathalie didn’t seem to find anything amiss in this and smiled. “I hope he’s let you smile in this one, don’t tell him I said so but the old one was a little gloomy.”

“It really was.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll see this one soon enough.” She said unconcerned looking back down to her book.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He deferred. It wasn’t weird to have pictures up of your friends, and his father wasn’t exactly subtle when it came to his tendency to decorate the walls with people he cared about, but then while Nathalie had never complained exactly about the photo’s he’d taken of her she’d never actually posed for one either. It would be terrible if it arrived and she hated it “You should probably ask my father about it though.”

She looked up. “I should?”

“It might be a good idea.”

Suspicion finally entered her eyes. “What’s he done this time?”

“Um, I think you should ask him. I mean, it’s nothing bad, just you might want to know, and he should be the one to tell you.” His voice trailed upwards at the end making it sound weirdly like a question.

“I suppose I should then.” She made no indication of movement though. “Adrien, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How _has_ it been with your father since my episode?”

That was a loaded question, and he didn’t know what answer she wanted. It seemed cruel to say it was better, as if the fall off in their relationship after his mother’s disappearance had been Nathalie’s fault. Saying it was ok felt like an evasion of both the good and the bad parts. It was better in that they were spending more time together now, but that improvement was always going to have come at the cost of his belief in his father’s moral compass.

“Adrien?” Nathalie looked concerned, “I know he’s been trying to be better, but”

“Did he say that to you?” That was a good sign he thought. Nathalie wasn’t working now but he doubted his father was out of the habit of telling her about things he had to do to ensure they got done. But it was unusual for her to ask Adrien about his father. “Why ask me then? He wouldn’t lie to you.”

“No, he wouldn’t and I certainly trust his determination once he’s decided on anything, but his ideas of how to solve things can be a bit,” she paused, “different to other peoples’. If something isn’t right you can tell me, and I’ll talk to him if you don’t want to.”

Technically that was how their relationship had been since his mother’s disappearance and sometimes even before. When Adrien couldn’t do something by directly asking his father Nathalie could intervene and tip the scales in his favour. Except it had never been this explicit before. Sure sometimes Adrien would ask, albeit hidden behind the excuse that she handled both their schedules and he didn’t want to interrupt his father, but she’d never outright offered her help before.

Apparently it was a time for changes all round.

“That’s ok. I mean things are a little awkward and I wish we’d do more actual things together but they are improving.”

“You don’t sound happy.”

“No! I am, I mean, everything that’s happening is good, I just. Did he tell you how we ending up talking about it?”

“He did.” She said neutrally.

“Did he tell exactly what was said?”

“Not word for word no.”

“Did he tell you he was happy for someone else to die to bring you or maman back?”

Her eyes widened slightly but all she said was “Ah.”

This felt like someone of an under-reaction to him. Then again, Nathalie spent far more time with his father than he did, doubtless she knew him better. Maybe this wasn’t such a shock to her, but if she thought that of him, he didn’t understand who she would chose to stay with them then. There were other jobs out there surely.

“You’re not surprised.” He said.

She shrugged. “He can be fixated on things when he sets his mind to it. What exactly did he say to you? This must have been a hypothetical.”

“It’s sort of a long story.”

“Go on.”

He tried to think where to start. “So did he tell you he wanted to contact Ladybug and Chat Noir to help you?”

“He did, but I think he said you were the one to actually contact them? That you know them somehow?”

“Uh, sort of. I don’t know who they are or anything, but yeah, I’ve met them a few times.”

“You’ve met them enough to be able to contact them when you want?”

“That’s putting it a bit strongly, Chat Noir knew about you and wanted to check I was ok.” That had the benefit of fitting in both with what his father knew about Adrien and what Ladybug knew about Chat Noir.

“Right, and he knew you enough to do that.” She didn’t sound happy about this at all and while she didn’t echo him exactly, Adrien was reminded about his father’s reaction to him knowing Ladybug and Chat Noir at the hospital. “That’s sweet of him. You should say thank you for me if you see him again. “

“Sure, he'd like to hear it. He was really sorry he couldn’t help you, you know, but there really wasn’t anything he and Ladybug could do. Trying to use their powers to help you would take an equal price from someone else.”

“And when you told your father he didn’t want to accept this.” She said. “That must have been a difficult conversation for you.”

“He didn’t even seem to think it was a problem! He accused me of not caring about you enough, like that was the only reason I'd have a problem with trying to steal from Ladybug and Chat Noir and then using their powers to kill people. He was all like 'what if it was your mother' as if that would change anything.”

“and you told him that?”

“Yes! You can’t just inflict something like that on someone else, even to save someone you care about.”

“No, no that would be unfair” she said but something about it didn’t seem sincere.

He hoped she wasn’t taken this as a rejection of her but, “You can’t agree with him?”

“I…no. No you’re right that would be wrong. You couldn’t cast do it unless someone volunteered.”

“To sacrifice themselves? Do you think someone would do that?”

“Well, not for me, but in other situations yes, some people would to save people they love.”

It was a much less horrible idea than what his father had proposed but something in Nathalie’s suggestion just didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t just her assumption no one would volunteer to help her. 

For some reason he felt forced to ask “Would you?”

“If the circumstances were right, yes.”

With the image of someone he actually knew disappearing to bring back someone else the flaw in her argument suddenly became obvious to him. “But what about everyone else they know? I can see wanting to swap your life for someone you love, like a parent would want to do that for a child, but the person that came back would feel really guilty, and they’d still be people mourning someone even if it’s a different set of people. I’d never want someone to do that for me.”

“That’s an interesting perspective.”

“Don’t you agree?”

“I’m not sure two lives are always equal.”

“Nathalie!” he burst in “You’re sounding as bad as my father, everyone’s life is important.”

“I don’t mean to condone what he was saying, but take you, you said you wouldn’t want anyone to sacrifice themselves for you but you’ve got your whole life ahead of you, while someone like me has already lived most of theirs. Some people might just have more to contribute than others. Besides it’s not that different to pushing someone you love out of the way of an out of control car or something.”

Still unconvinced, he was about to reply when he realised that he might actually owe Ladybug an apology. Here he was telling Nathalie that no one was more important than someone else and he wouldn’t want anyone to make that choice on his behalf, while he was _always_ making the choice to ensure he was the only one in mortal danger on Ladybug’s behalf because she was more important.

It wasn’t completely comparable because out of the two of them she was the only one who could reverse any damage taken. She could bring him back to life without any consequences and he couldn’t her. Yet he’d never really taken her admonishments seriously or thought what it might be like for her. Stopping completely wasn’t an option, but maybe he did need to start thinking about what alternatives there were instead of jumping to self-sacrifice.

“Adrien?”

“Sorry I just realised something.” Eager to share this realisation with Nathalie he returned to his argument, feeling an actual example would illustrate things for her the way it had for him, “but, I mean how do you think you and I would feel if my father had somehow got the miraculouses and brought you back by sacrificing himself?”

Nathalie blinked, “Your father wouldn’t do that for me.”

That was deeply missing his point and, “You didn’t see him while you were in that coma. This whole crazy plan was because of you.” A horrible thought occurred to him, “unless you really think he’d only be ready to kill someone else?”

She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, I’m really not being any god at reassuring you am I. You’re worried about his father, and I’m trying to pull you into some philosophical discussion on the value of life.”

Now he was reminded of his failure to reassure Ladybug. Maybe he really could blame his upbringing.

“Do you think he’d really have done it?”

“I” she looked down at lap. “I don’t think he was speaking rationally when he spoke to you. I think he maybe hadn’t realised how sick I was, and of course he still hasn’t got over losing your mother. I mean the whole idea is imminently ridiculous, getting the Miraculouses when Hawkmoth’s been trying and failing to do that for months? Knowing how to use them? It’s easy to talk about doing something when the chance of it happening is so unlikely.”

“But he still considered it.”

“He did, and you wouldn’t, but you’ve led a very sheltered life, and your father” she sighed, “your father likes to think of himself as a worse man than he actually is.”

It wasn’t exactly a denial, but it was _something._ Something was more than his father was willing to offer him. Something was more than Adrien could understand of his father himself because while they were slowly spending more time together the argument had really been the only time his father had shared something about himself. Nathalie who had spent most of every day by his side for years must have had a much better understanding of him, and that she didn’t offer an unequivocal confirmation his father would do what he’d threatened was more reassuring than it strictly ought to be.

“That does kind of reassure me.” The main issue out of the way the undercurrent in their conversation became clear to him. “You know you’re not that old?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You were saying that if it was my life at stake it would matter more because I’m young and have my whole life ahead of me, but you’d sacrifice your life, but you’ve still got loads of your life left too.” He stopped realising this mightn’t be the kindest thing to say to someone with an ongoing threatening health condition. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking about your illness.”

“Don’t worry about it. I seem to be improving even if the doctors have no idea what’s going on.”

“Good. I don’t know about” he realised suddenly that he hadn’t heard of anyone else ever visiting Nathalie in hospital, maybe they just hadn’t met them, but visiting times weren’t that long he didn’t think. “Anyone else” he added weakly, “but you know my father and I would miss you. I know in your letter you didn’t seem to think we cared about you but we do. We were falling apart without you. So you know don’t go sacrificing yourself.”

“Oh Adrien.” She said, and pulled him into a hug, “Don’t you worry about me. “

It was nice. It was nice to feel like even if his mother was gone he still had a family.

“You know” he said “you really should ask my father about the painting.”

Her hold on him loosened slightly. “Ok, if you think it’s that important I will. Now don’t you have a basketball match to be getting ready for?”

* * *

Nathalie and his father were being _odd_ this evening. Odd for them that was.

Nathalie had never been a touchy-feely person but she’d never seemed to share his father’s aversion to unrelated human contact either. Yet tonight it seemed as she’d assimilated his distaste. She drew back whenever either he or his father came in touching distance of her. She modelled a pulled in seated position which he realised now was something his father did yet Nathalie being smaller somehow made it seem stranger, and more protective as she somehow managed to almost curl in on herself while still sitting upright.

Meanwhile his father had apparently had a personality transplant the totally opposite way. The meal had started normally enough. He’d started with his usual question about what Adrien had done all day, but then he’d actually engaged with what Adrien said rather than leaving him to monologue. Which wasn’t totally unknown but then when Adrien had been explaining about their plan for their next match, he’d actually asked if parents came along to watch, and Adrien said yes he’d said that he and Nathalie might come along for the next one then, and maybe he should have some of the boys on the team over to the house sometime.

Adrien was starting to worry that his father had actually been replaced by a clone. It would make more sense than this.

Maybe telling Nathalie to ask about the portrait had been a mistake. He couldn’t imagine what they’d said to each other to end up with this as the result. 

Though he wasn’t even sure that whatever had been said between them before could explain all of this because right now Nathalie looked like she shared his suspicion that his father had been replaced by a clone.

Their confusion must have been pretty obvious because at one point his father looked over to Nathalie and said “I told you I was doing things with Adrien didn’t I?”

Like Adrien she didn’t seem to think this fully explained everything either if the look on her face meant anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nathalie: *walks in on Gabriel & Adrien in front of the television*  
> Nathalie:...what are you two watching?  
> Adrien: I'm showing Father compilation videos of my favourite anime romantic gestures.  
> Nathalie: This is the worst idea I have ever heard in my life. Please stop.
> 
> \-----------  
> heads up, I think the next chapter will take a little longer or possibly be v. short, I could go either way at this point tbh.


	7. Chapter 7

The Problem of the Peacock Miraculous was putting quite a dampener on his time with Ladybug.

He knew he was being selfish when he should just be glad the lack of akuma attacks meant they could spend time together talking and not just fighting together.

And He _was_ glad that it seemed to help her to have someone to talk to about the whole situation.

But every time they spoke and tried to work out what Hawkmoth was up to the conversation came back around to the Peacock Miraculous.

“Look, I’m going to have to put it on.” Ladybug said.

“No!” Adrien burst out. “What if Hawkmoth wasn’t lying? I won’t let you get hurt.”

Hawkmoth might be willing to let Mayura hurt herself for his sake but Adrien wasn’t willing to do the same to Ladybug. If he had to steal the Peacock Miraculous from Ladybug and hide it at home he would. He’d even ask his father to use the safe if he had to despite the questions it would raise.

“Won’t? This is my decision.” Ladybug bristled.

“Is it?” He tried to calm down. “That’s not what you tell me when you’re telling me off for being reckless.”

She relaxed slightly at his tone and encouraged he continued on his theme. “What can I say my lady, Ladybug and Chat Noir sounds better than either of us apart. I’m your partner, this is a decision we should make together.”

She gave a slight smile at him almost quoting her, but then her face fell again.

“I am glad you’re here kitty, but this does have to be my decision. I’m supposed to be the Guardian.”

“I get that” He said, even though it didn’t think it had been fair for Fu to put that on her, “but it’s too dangerous. If it is damaged then we don’t know what the consequences of using it might be. We don’t know what happened to Mayura. For all we know that’s why Hawkmoth isn’t around.”

“We don’t know what happened to Mayura.” She agreed. “But we know she used the Miraculous plenty of times before she disappeared on us. The effects of it must be cumulative and I’m not planning to keep using it.”

She did have a point but Chat still didn’t like it. “Isn’t there any other way?”

“Not that I can find in the Grimoire, but I do know something that might make it safer.”

“What’s that then?”

“Something Fu once said. Wielding multiple Miraculouses can send you mad, but just wearing them to free the Kwami’s doesn’t have that effect. So long as I don’t transform most of the Mircaulous’ power won’t be running through me, and we don’t want to transform because the whole reason I want to do this is so we can speak to the Peacock’s Kwami.”

“I hate that you have a point. But I still don’t think it should be you to put the brooch on. Paris needs you fit and healthy.”

“I can’t ask anyone else to do it.”

“Maybe you” Adrien started only to stop and realise that if he continued and told her that she should because she _was_ more important than anyone else in Paris he’d be sounding like his father had when he’d wanted to use their Miraculouses to save Nathalie.

“Maybe I should what?” Asked Ladybug.

“Maybe you should let me do it?” He offered hoping she wouldn’t see through to what he’d been going to say. He didn’t want to disappoint her.

“How does that help us?”

“We can better afford me to be out of commission, your powers are more important to defeating Akumas.” He tried to explain only realising that in his attempt not to sound like his father he now sounded like Nathalie.

Perhaps it was a good thing he didn’t know what his mother would have thought of the Wish.

“Chaton we’ve spoken about you doing this.”

“Look,” he decided to change the subject. “Have you even spoken to your Kwami about this? Surely she can’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Tikki agrees with me that there’s no way around it, and I’m not going to endanger someone else because of my decision if I can help it.”

He didn’t like it but he could see further argument wasn’t going to help.

“Do you have it with you?”

“Umhmm.” She nodded, and somehow pulled it out of her yoyo, “I was hoping you’d agree with me and I could try it now, with us together.”

That made him feel really bad but for what he was about to do he couldn’t let her get hurt.

“Can I see it?” He asked.  
  
She looked at him and for a moment he thought she’d spotted his plan but then she shrugged and went “Sure.”

He took the brooch and made a show of holding it up to the light of the moon to inspect it.

Then he pinned it to his suit in one swift movement.

“Chat!” screamed Ladybug, but she was too late.

“HELLO! You’re new!” a small blue Kwami screeched. “Oooh, you’re Chat Noir, I remember fighting you!”

“I can’t believe you just did that. I told you I was going to do it.”

“Ooh, and you’re Ladybug!” the Kwami continued apparently unbothered by what was going on between the two Miraculous wielders.

“I’m sorry Ladybug, but I couldn’t let you get hurt. Anyway, we have what you wanted now don’t we?”

“I’m Duusu!” The Kwami finished.

Ladybug glared at him but relented looking at the Kwami. “Hi Duusu, are you ok?”

“I’m great.” Duusu did a little spin above their heads. “I’m more than great, I’m-oh, oh no.” the Kwami sunk down to their height like a deflated balloon and said “I _am_ good.” in a tone that suggested the opposite.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“My miraculous isn’t broken anymore.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Ladybug said.

“Ye-es” Duusu hedged, “but you’re here now not my old wielder, did you take me from her before she could get fixed too? She was so unwell.”

“We didn’t take you from Mayura.” Adrien said concerned “Hawkmoth gave your Miraculous to us.”

With this confirmation that there _had_ been a problem with the Peacock Miraculous he felt confident that Hawkmoth wouldn’t have given it to them if doing so meant any harm to Mayura, but then Hawkmoth had also said his attempt to fix the Miraculous hadn’t worked, so maybe he didn't know everything about how the Miraculous worked.

“ _He_ did?” Duusu brightened again, “She must be ok too then, he was always making sure she was ok, it was so sweet!”

“So can you” Ladybug started but Duusu continued talking.

“OH! If he gave it up then he must have chosen her! I can’t believe I missed the big romantic resolution!”

Adrien and Ladybug met each other’s eyes in mutual confusion. What did the Kwami mean he’d chosen her?

Adrien went out on a limb, “but if your Miraculous was fixed then surely her health wasn’t a problem anymore?”

Duusu’s eye impossibly widened, “Oh no, maybe she never put the fixed miraculous on! Maybe he didn’t know she had to.”

“Wouldn’t you remember if she did?” asked Ladybug.

“I don’t know” panicked the Kwami “It’s always more an impression than really seeing what’s going on once we’ve transformed you, and that’s without the reset.”

“Reset?” Ladybug and Adrien asked simultaneously. 

“It’s happens after the Miraculous is fixed, and our powers run through it for the first time the right way! You should know what that word means, I think you humans sometimes call it “turning it on and off again”.”

“Uh Duusu?” Ladybug queried “What happens to your wielder when a Miraculous resets?”

“They reset too duh!”

Adrien froze and looked over at Ladybug to check she was as concerned as he was and he wasn’t missing something.

He really really didn’t want to be sorry for Hawkmoth who had basically brought this on himself but apparently he didn’t hate either Hawkmoth or Mayura enough to want what Duusu had unknowingly implied.

“Um” Duusu went looking between them, “…do humans not turn off and on again?”

“Not exactly” he admitted.

“Oh no!” Duusu burst into tears again.

“Don’t cry” Ladybug tried, “I’m sure Mayura’s fine! The Miraculous let humans do all sorts of things they don’t usually.”

Adrien wasn’t quite as sure about this, Ladybug obviously had a more optimistic view on life than he did.

She must have been able to see his lack of conviction because she mouthed “play along” tetchily when the crying Kwami couldn’t see her.

“Yeah, I’m sure Mayura’s fine. She seemed very….determined, I’m sure something like this wouldn’t get her down.”

“You’re right.” Duusu regained some composure. “We could hardly keep her down before. She never wanted to rest. She had such devotion for him, it was beautiful. Oh” the Kwami looked between them, “I’m sorry, I’m sure your romance is very beautiful too, I’m so excited to see it from this side of things.”

“Our, no, there’s no romance here.” Ladybug spluttered.

“But I can feel the love! He certainly loves you. And you”

“Stop right there.” Labybug said. “Duusu, I have a question about Mayura.”

This caught the Kwami’s attention stopping the frown forming on her face from being cut off. “I can’t tell you who she is.”

“I know, but this Reset, it returns the Miraculous to how it was right?”

“Yes” replied Duusu clearly confused.

“Does it do the same to the Wielder?”

“Yeah, she’ll be back to normal and not sick anymore.”

“Right, but does it affect her mind too? You seem to remember things ok, she won’t lose her memories from it will her?”

Adrien frowned he hadn’t considered that at all. He didn’t really wish that on Hawkmoth and Mayura either. He might have before Nathalie woke up, but it was easy to feel magnanimous to them now.

“What? No I don’t think so.” The Kwami span round in apparent thought, “that would be so sad for them, but no I don’t think her memories will be effected at all. I do wish I could see her again though.”

“I suppose Hawkmoth’s not going to get distracted by having to care for her then,” sighed Ladybug, “well, I’m not really that disappointed. It might have been useful but I wouldn’t really want to win like that.”

He’d never have thought Ladybug would think any differently but it was nice to know they were in agreement on that.

“You are nice aren’t you! Your emotions are going to be really fun, did you know you,”

“Chat take off that brooch.” Ladbybug interrupted “We’ve established it’s fixed. I’ll take it home and Duusu can meet the other Kwami’s. “

“Sorry Duusu, maybe I’ll see you again sometime.” Adrien said as he sheepishly removed the brooch.

“I hope so. I can’t wait to see the others though!” said Duusu before disappearing.

“Thank you.” Ladybug bit out as he gave it back to her.

“I’m sorry about all about us there.”

“ _That’s_ what you’re sorry for. The thing that wasn’t your fault? I don’t care about that.”

“Err, it kind of looked like you cared.”

“Because I didn’t want Duusu telling you about my feelings. I don’t even know what my feelings are half the time!”

“I thought you liked some guy?”

“I do, but it’s complicated, and that’s not what I want to talk about anyway.”

“So, you’re not cross at me because I like you?”

“No, that is really not the problem here.”

“I mean sometimes,” he trailed off unsure if he wanted to remind Ladybug about the times he’d made of thing of it with her.

“When you were pushing it or embarrassing me on TV. The issue isn’t that you like me, it’s how you act on it, and right now that’s not even what I’m cross about either.”

“Then?”

“I’m cross with you over what you pulled with the brooch.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You keep saying that, but you never ever seem to listen to me. I told you this had to be my decision and you totally ignored me.”

“You’re right.”

“I” She blinked “What?”

“It’s been brought pretty close to home to me recently that it’s not fair to you when I always go for the sacrifice play. And I get that. And I do want to try to be better. Haven’t been any akumas to test it out but,” he trailed off. The first part had sounded good in his head when he’d rehearsed it but this wasn’t the situation he’d expected to use it in.

“But you still did it right then?”

“Yeah.” He admitted. “The thing is I don’t think this sort of thing should just be your decision, and I probably shouldn’t have lied, but there wasn’t a solution was there? You didn’t know it was safe else you’d have let me try it on, and I had no idea if it was so I didn’t want you to try it on.”

She threw her arms in the air. “I had a whole rant ready for you, but I’m not sure if I can even use it after that. Look, I see where you’re coming from and I’ll let this one slide given the situation, but you have to stop doing this. We haven’t even had any akumas and you’re done it _twice_ with the Peacock Miraculous.”

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“I can’t promise you I’ll never do something like this again, you mean a lot to me, and I want to protect you, but I’m going to try to be better about it.”

“Ok.” She exhaled. “You know I am glad to have someone to talk to about all of this, but, if I’m going to be able to do that, I need to do need you to actually listen to me, and not just nod and ignore me.”

“I can promise to do that.” He turned a trained smile on trying to raise her spirits. He wasn’t sure it was fair that she should have to shoulder the leadership for all of this but Fu had made her the Guardian not him.

She smiled weakly back at him then looked away.

“Can I ask you something?” She said.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to pry about your identity. But, earlier when you were talking about things being close to home, were you talking about Mlle. Sancoeur? Did Hawkmoth target her, because of her connection to you?”

Adrien tensed when she brought up Nathalie but relaxed when she mentioned Hawkmoth. Ladybug had struck closer to home than she could know about where his thoughts about sacrifice had come from but thankfully, “Oh, no, no that had nothing to do with anything. Just unfortunate coincidence I guess.”

* * *

Adrien’s just finished his piano lesson and is heading up to his room, when he spots Nathalie coming out of the Atelier.

It’s such a usual image that it isn’t until she blushes at being caught that he realises that it isn’t normal any more. She not supposed to working.

“I heard the phone.” She justifies.

“Shouldn’t Father be answering that?” he asked, wondering if she missed work that much. He thought generally people didn’t like working, but then in TV shows people didn’t seem to like school either and Adrien didn’t get that. Besides it must be weird for Nathalie being here but not in the Atelier.

“He’s done one of his disappearing acts again. Without notifying his new assistant apparently so she’s still putting calls through.” She rolled her eyes.

“Disappearing acts?” He asked, confused.

“Oh, you know how he is. Constantly deciding he needs to sit in the garden, or in another room in the house to get new inspiration.” 

“I guess.” Honestly Adrien generally assumed his father was just in the Atelier all the time. He always seemed to be there when he went looking for him.

“It’s ridiculous, expecting his assistant to work remotely. Is this how it’s been all this time?”

“Mostly.” He replied wondering if Nathalie had ever met her work replacement, or just had his father complain at her about it.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It would suit him” She muttered.

Adrien felt the need to rise to his father’s defence. “Well you can’t blame him can you?”

“What do you mean?”

Surely she couldn’t be that oblivious. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not really, I’m sorry if I missing something but you’re going to have to explain?”

“It’s all because he misses you. He hates seeing someone trying to take your place.”

“What?” She collected herself, “Well, I am very good at my job I suppose, and he is a perfectionist.”

“Nathalie!”

She sighed. “I know what you’re trying to say Adrien. I suppose this isn’t the worst possible outcome of what happened but I do need to talk to him. This can’t go on. If only to make my life easier when I’m back from sick leave.”

* * *

“Hey,” Adrien asked his bodyguard from the back seat, “Do you know what’s going on between my father and Nathalie?”

Never had a shrug and facial expression captured in the rear mirror of a car so well expressed “I don’t even want to know.”

* * *

He talked to his mother’s stature sometimes. There were plenty of other representations of her in the house but this one somehow felt like the grave they were missing for her in a way the others didn’t.

It was nice to keep her updated even if she couldn’t reply. Sometimes he liked to think he saw an expression crossing the stature’s face as she approved of something he’d done.

He didn’t notice his father approach until his distinctive shadow fell in front of him. He turned towards him but rather than speaking his father sat down beside him.

Then he spoke. “This is familiar.”

It was actually to that time almost a year ago before Aunt Amélie and Felix had arrived, but Adrien could only hope this conversation had a better outcome.

Apparently he wasn’t the only one thinking about that because his father continued “Last year, you said you’ve be happy if I was to begin a romantic relationship with Nathalie. I was unfairly harsh with you then, but you took me by surprise-it wasn’t something I’d even considered and I was still grieving your mother. But I think you might have seen my feelings more clearly than I did. So what I want to know, is do you still feel the same way now?”

Adrien tried not to look too vindicated at having known what was going on. “Yes. Of course. I told you then, she’s already part of our family. If this will make the two of happy I’m all for it. And, if I’m being honest I wasn’t really looking forward to her moving out.”

“Good then. That’s good.”

“So are you together now?”

“Not quite yet no. I’d ah, appreciate it if you didn’t say anything about this to her yet.”

“What do you mean not yet? Were you just waiting on my approval or?”

“That was part of it yes, but now I just need to convince her.”

That was a weird way of saying you wanted to ask someone out. Admittedly Adrien’s experience of relationships was pretty limited but his own failures with Ladybug seemed to suggest you couldn’t just convince someone to date you, even if you tried to look like an ideal boyfriend. The other person had to be interested.

Surely though his father had a better read on Nathalie than Adrien had though. They spent so much time together, and seemed to move in sync, and well there had been reasons he’d asked about them before. They were always catching each other’s eye, and they’d stand comfortably much closer to each other than strictly necessary, and there were small unconscious things they’d do like him offering his arm to steady her up the stairs, and her fixing his cravat before one of the rare times they left the house that made it look like they were a couple already.

Still he felt he had to ask, “Convince? She is interested right, Father?”

“Interested? Adrien, I might be selfish but I’m not going force my assistant into a relationship. I’m not in any doubt about Nathalie’s affection. She just has some understandable reservations, which I need to prove aren’t the obstacle she thinks they are.”

“And you have a plan for doing that?”

“Oh, I know what I need to do. I just need to pluck up the courage to do it.” He said before looking up at the stature.

“You know she wouldn’t begrudge you finding happiness.”

“What?”

“Maman, I’m sure she’d be happy for you and Nathalie. I’ve been telling her about everything.” He shrugged “I know she can’t reply, but I’m sure she’s happy to see you moving on.”

“I, I’m glad you feel that way Adrien.” His father said but he sounded weirdly uncertain.

He hoped he hadn’t somehow put his father off the idea of pursuing Nathalie.

* * *

His father has his temporary assistant work more from the house.

Nathalie watched her bring her laptop in with a pleased smirk.

When she managed to somehow re-access his schedule on his phone Adrien realised that maybe his father had another motive for wanting her work replacement out of the house. With her here it’s much easier for Nathalie to “offer help” or “correct things” or “pop in to see how things are going”, and basically fail completely at not working

He isn’t sure if the amount she kept trying to interfere in her old work was her aim when she assumedly asked his father to have his new assistant work from the house, or just a consequence when she actually saw someone else try to do her job and either jealousy or perfectionism struck.

Despite his conversation with his father making it very clear he enjoys having Nathalie’s company Adrien kept expecting him to ban her from the Atelier. Either for violating the recovery plan he’d been so strict about or just so he could actually get some work done.

He doesn’t.

The next time Adrien went in there he discovered that instead he’s had a comfortable chair brought in for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 16/06 to clarify some things. 
> 
> In other news guess who had to spend almost an hour and half lying down with an ice park over her eyes because hayfever+cleaning products are apparently a horrendous mix. 0/10 do not recommend.


	8. Chapter 8

“What’s this about?” said Adrien. He thought when his father had texted him to come downstairs to talk that maybe there hadn’t been that maybe Nathalie’s reservations hadn’t been such a barrier after all. But his father and Nathalie didn’t look like two people about to reveal a relationship, sitting on nearly opposite sides of the room.

And his father looked too nervous for someone who already knew Adrien’s feelings on that matter.

No, this was about something else, but Adrien couldn’t think what his father thought was so important, that he needed to summon him this formally. It couldn’t be his performance at school or music, or sport. It took an exhausting about of effort admittedly but he’d managed to avoid Chat Noir having any negative effects on his grades, or other activities.

Nathalie looks even less comfortable than his father. “Should I go sir?” she asked. “I can give you and Adrien your privacy.”

Her going back to “sir”, can’t be a good sign.

“I’d prefer if you stayed. “ His father replied.

She nodded “Ok”

His father doesn’t make any further move to talk.

“Has something happened?” Adrien ventured.

His father inhaled shakily then said “The police contacted me today about your mother”

“To ask you more about her disappearance?” He tried not to get too worked up. She was still technically an active missing person. This could be anything.

“No, not to question me, I’m sorry Adrien but they’ve found your mother’s body.”

His throat seemed to close up and he had to sit down before his suddenly shaky legs gave up from under him. He’d known she was probably dead but having confirmation still made a difference somehow. “Where? How?”

“Amiens apparently. They didn’t have much more information for me, but they’re.” He cut himself off and looked at Nathalie, who nodded at him.

“They’re saying there’s no clear evidence to explain how she died, but I’m sure they’ll let us know once they do.”

“How much evidence can there be? It’s been over a year since she disappeared, she must be.” He couldn’t continue. Imagining her decayed like that just felt wrong. She’d always been so active and full of energy, and beautiful too like a princess in a fairy tale.

“They, um, they’re saying her death was recent. Not when she disappeared.”

“What?”

“They originally responded to a sighting of her alive apparently. They only found the body later.”

“I don’t understand.” He’d come up with many theories on where his mother had gone but, “she would never have abandoned us.”

“Of course not. I don’t know, we might never know what happened to her between her disappearance and now, but we know her, and she would never have left us voluntarily.”

His father believed that at least. Adrien was less sure. It made no sense that she’d leave them, but then none of this made any sense.

Suddenly he found he couldn’t stay in this room. Not with the photo of them all together still there.

“I need, I need to get out of this house. I can’t deal with this with reminders of her everywhere.”

“I understand but,”

Adrien interrupted his father, uncaring about the politeness right now, “But? You’re supposing to be trying, but when I ask for one thing when I learn Maman’s dead you can’t even give me that.”

“I’m trying to protect you.”

“You always say that.” He said, his heart racing, “Protect me from what? All the worst things in my life are in this house.”

He’d scored a hit he could tell as his father started, but he couldn’t take any pleasure in it. The need to just escape overrode everything.

His father stood up and Adrien wasn’t sure if he was going to come over to yell at him or leave the room in disgust.

“Gabriel.” Nathalie broke in, startling him. He’d completely forgotten she was there. “He’s shaking.”

Suddenly she was there next to him, she place a hand over his. “Are you going to faint? How are you feeling?”

“I’m shaky but I don’t think I’m going to faint.” It was just a reaction to the shock of what they’d told him, anyone would feel shaky. “I kind of feel like I’ve just run a marathon.”

“Like exhaustion, or?”

“My hearts beating too fast.” He’d thought that was just the anger but was he ill too? Did he have whatever his mother and Nathalie had had? “Am I sick too?”

“Oh, no Adrien no, I think you’re just having a panic attack.”

His father timidly sat down on his other side and slowly extended an arm around him.

It felt nice despite everything. Grounding. He leant into it.

“What do we do?” his father asked at the same moment Adrien asked ““How do I stop?”

“Just breath Adrien. Just concentrate on breathing. You’re going to be ok. We’ll find a way for you to get what you need.”

“We will, I’m sorry, I should have been careful. I never wanted to hurt you.” Said his father.

He tried to do what she said and concentrated on his breath. In and out. In and out. While they both continued to try to reassure him.

Eventually the urge to flee seemed to subside and he didn’t feel like he was simultaneously running and trying to collapse any more.

“Are you alright now?”

“I think so.”

“I’m sorry Adrien. I should have considered your reaction would be different to mine. I wanted to protect you from the paparazzi. If the police make a public announcement they’ll be swarming you, but if you need to get out of the house we’ll find a way to make it work.”

“Oh.” Adrien felt stupid. That was actually a pretty sensible reason. “Maybe that’s not such a good idea then.”

The adults looked at each over above his head and they must have had some silent conversation because his father frowned.

“Do you want to invite a friend over?”

He did know they’d say so, but who he wanted really was Ladybug and he could hardly invite her. If he’d thought faster he could have gone to his room and escaped out the window as Chat Noir but they’d be watching him now.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah I’m going to go call Nino. Let him in the gate please. I’ll be in my room”

His father started up as if to follow him but Nathalie pulled on his blazer and he sat back down.

Adrien glanced back at the two of them, and their concerned faces as he left the room.

He felt he should have been angry to see how they’d inched closer together but somehow he couldn’t muster any the energy to feel anything about it. Maybe that made him a bad son. Or maybe it was just that that was how they’d been for months now.

* * *

Having Nino there helped somewhat. He still wished he could talk to Ladybug though.

* * *

The coroner’s report called her death natural causes.

Apparently there was no evidence of foul play. Her lungs had just shut down under their own accord. Medically bizarre but no traces of any foreign elements were found to suggest any sort of poisoning.

What she’d been doing for the time between her disappearance and checking into a hotel in Amiens remained a mystery.

His father maintained she must have been trying to make her way back to them.

Adrien remained unconvinced, but then her disappearance was a mystery before. In some ways it feels like things haven’t changed for it still to be a mystery now.

* * *

His classmates were trying their best to be comforting he knew.

But for some reason while Nino had been a comfort in the immediate aftermath, and he still was, sometimes the attentions of the rest of his glass felt grating. He tried to be grateful regardless.

Perhaps it was because none of them but Chloé had even known Maman, so their condolences felt false in a way they hadn’t when Nathalie was injured for all they’d barely meet Nathalie either.

* * *

It rained the day of the funeral as If they were in a film and the director had chosen appropriate weather. Only in a film the rain would be a metaphor for their emotions, echoing the tears they were shedding, or falling in place of the ones they were holding in. This wasn’t a film though and the weather wasn’t representative of Adrien’s feelings at all. Everyone kept coming up to him to offer their condolences and he felt like a fraud.

He didn’t need people’s sympathies _now,_ he’d needed them when she originally disappeared. He’d accepted his mother was gone months ago and accepted too that there probably wasn’t going to be a funeral.

When his father had confirmed she was really truly officially dead he had been shocked. Once he’d had some time to process it he actually felt relieved. Having confirmation was just different even if he’d already known she was probably dead. He didn’t regret going to see view her to say goodbye at all, but during the service itself he just felt kind of hollow.

When he’d gone up to say a reading he’d mostly just felt nervous that everyone there would see through him and realise he wasn’t mourning properly.

He wished he could talk to his father about it but unlike Adrien there was clearly nothing fake about his grief.

The guests had slowly trickled away from the grave, off towards the reception leading just the family at the grave. Then Nathalie had whispered something to his father before squeezing his hand and gone off to supervise everything.

Eventually Aunt Amélie had told him and Felix to go off and wait in the car while she and his father made their final goodbyes.

Adrien could have felt offended at the idea he, as her son, was less entitled to say goodbye than her husband or twin but in truth he was more than glad to get away. Perhaps he’d come back later and the gravestone would feel more comforting like her stature always had. Though he had doubts-the stature had the inarguable benefit of privacy.

The downside of sitting in the limo waiting was that rather than having a friend with him, or even being alone apart from his driver, he had Felix with him.

To his cousin’s credit he was at least helping change Adrien’s mood. If only to annoyance.

Felix had every right to be angry but there were only so many snipes a person could take about how some people knew their duty to their family.

“I’m sorry.” He snapped. “I’m sorry, we should have gone to your dad’s funeral. I should have been there for you, or I don’t know at least texted you more to see if you were ok. It wasn’t my decision, my father was barely letting me out of the house, I could hardly have snuck onto the Startrain without him.”

Felix sat back. “I thought hearing you say that would feel better.”

“Grief’s weird right?” offered Adrien.

“You’re telling me. Why are our lives such a mess?”

“I wish I knew.”

At that point their surviving parents finally made their way into the car. Neither of them said anything but the Agreste driver knew his employer too well at this stage and started driving them to the reception.

Aunt Amélie was holding a ring which she stared at for much of the car journey. She didn’t make any effort to hide the plain silver band, but his father was making a deliberate effort to look away from it staring out the window. Adrien tried to surreptitiously check his father’s hand and his wedding ring was indeed missing.

He’d known his aunt had wanted the De Vanilly rings back but he wasn’t sure his mother’s funeral was the right time to do it and his aunt only seemed to have the one ring. Was this planned and he’d already given her her sister’s already?

Actually his father probably _would_ think there was something symbolic in only handing his over once his wife was probably laid to rest.

Or had Aunt Amélie taken the opportunity to ask again at the grave?

Or was _this_ one the things his father had to do to convince Nathalie to date him?

The last one made him feel strange. Uncomfortable like his intestines were snakes moving around inside him. He wanted them to be happy but he didn’t want his mother forgotten either. The only bit of reassurance he could cling to was that he couldn’t even imagine Nathalie asking for this. She’d had an old family photo of Adrien and his parents moved back to space over the stairs, she was hardly trying to erase his mother.

Eventually the car pulled to a stop and this seemed to break Aunt Amélie out of her trance. She handed the ring to Felix who took it with an odd expression, before pocketing it.

His father’s desire for privacy hadn’t quite been able to win over his dislike at admitting people to the house and he’d ended up taking Chloé’s dad up on his offer to host everyone after the funereal.

Once inside his father stopped still on seeing the crowd, only to pick Nathalie out and make a beeline for her.

Adrien looked around the crowd for the friends he’d invited. The very fact that they didn’t know his mother which had irritated him when they tried to comfort him before now seemed like exactly what he needed.

Adrien spotted Marinette and was about to head over to her, hoping she’d know where the rest of his friends were too when Felix interrupted.

“He doesn’t hang around does he?”

“What?” Adrien asked, lost.

Felix raised his eyebrows, “Sorry, should that have been she didn’t hesitate before getting her hooks in?”

“What do you mean?” Adrien frowned.

His cousin rolled his eyes. “The secretary. You can’t be that naïve.”

“ _Nathalie?”_

“Whatever her name is. They’ve hardly let Aunt Emilie get cold in her grave. I don’t know how you can be ok with it.”

He supposed it might look like that to Felix but that wasn’t fair, his mother had been lost to them long before they found her body. It wasn’t as if his father had heard his mother was dead then immediately decided to move onto Nathalie.

“It’s not like that.” He tried to defend them “Nathalie’s not like that. She’s never tried to displace my mother. I’m happy for her and my father if they make each other happy.”

“Oh how very French. Accepting the mistress at the wife’s funeral.” Said Felix unable to have sounded more patronising if he’d tried.

That was false, unfair and totally uncalled for. Besides which, “You’re French.”

“I’m English. This is very French.”

Unable to come up with a good response to this Adrien fell back on the other point in question. “She’s not his mistress. They’re not even together yet!”

“Wow. I don’t even want to dig in to what that means. Have fun!” Felix said making his way over to the refreshments. “I’m allowed wine in France right?”

“Yes, but, like with dinner and water, you can’t just grab a glass Felix!”

A quiet voice broke in “Are you ok?”

“Marinette! Thank goodness you’re here. I’m fine.” He replied flustered. “It’s just my cousin is being difficult.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised” she said with a level of sarcasm he’d never before associated with his usually sweet classmate.

He looked at her in shock, “Sorry?” and then realised “Oh, I’d forgotten you’d met him before.”

“That’s one way of putting it” Marinette muttered, but she placed her hand on his shoulder and said “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Somehow he felt he could trust her when he wasn’t able to trust anyone else here. Perhaps because if she was here he’d be able to tell Ladybug and who was Marinette if not his everyday Ladybug?

“Honestly I’m fine. I know I shouldn’t be but I mourned Maman when she disappeared. This just feels odd. Does that make me a terrible person?”

She shook her head, “I don’t think so! If more people were like you then maybe Ladybug and Chat Noir wouldn’t have to deal with anywhere as many situations.”

Unfortunately at that point Felix reappeared with three glasses of wine.

“Like father, like son I see.” He said for no apparent reason.

Marinette went as red as a tomato and yanked her hand away from Adrien.

“Um.” Said Adrien dumbly.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your beautiful companion?”

“Right, this is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She’s in my class at school. If I wasn’t contracted to my father’s brand I’d say she’s the best designer I’ve ever met. Her parents run the most fantastic bakery. I should take you there. The macarons are to die for, you’re deprived in London.”

Marinette had somehow gone even redder and he realised he maybe might have gone a little bit too far in his attempt to show how worthwhile a person she was to his cousin.

“Mlle. Dupain-Cheng. How lovely to meet you. I’ve kiss your hand but mine are rather too full to take yours. Wine?”

“Ok” She said in a higher pitch than he’d ever heard from her before, but took the glass Felix offered her anyway, even as she looked at it in panic.

Adrien copied her only to regret it when Felix took the advantage to take Marinette’s free hand and did kiss it.

“I believe I owe you an apology.” Felix added.

For a moment Adrien was concerned Marinette was actually going to explode but she managed to recover and say “I think you owe our entire class an apology actually.”

He reached his arm around her shoulders to try to support her in this situation,

“Perhaps, but I’m not sure I’d enjoy another apology as much as this one.” Said Felix.

Adrien really hoped he wasn’t this cringeworthy when flirting with Ladybug as Chat Noir, but given that he and Felix were so alike people always said they could have been twins he couldn’t feel confident he didn’t. He _really_ needed to reconsider how he acted with her.

Still while Marinette clearly distrusted Felix she didn’t seem too disturbed by the situation.

Desperately he looked around for a way to extricate himself from his cousin when he finally managed to spot Nino and Alya.

“Oh, look, there’s the rest of our class. Why don’t we go over Felix so I can introduce you and you can make more apologies?”

“I think I should probably check my mother’s ok. Say sorry for everyone for me?” Felix asked before making his own escape.

Adrien didn’t feel quite satisfied that Felix had really properly made his apologies to his classmates. Marinette might be class president but she that didn’t mean she was proxy for everyone, but he really couldn’t convince himself to go after Felix either.

Besides this must be hard for Aunt Amélie, having the final confirmation her twin was dead, after already losing her husband.

Marinette seemed happy enough to leave Felix behind and head over to their friends anyway.

Nino and Alya grinned when they saw them in a way that wasn’t really appropriate for a funeral but he couldn’t really resent.

As Alya greeted them and started talking to Marinette, Nino caught his eye clearly asking if Adrien was alright.

Adrien gave a weak nod but Nino whispered something to Alya, and pulled Adrien away with him.

“You look like a guy that needs some air.” His friend said in explanation.

* * *

Unfortunately they couldn’t stay outside forever.

Nor could he consistently avoid his cousin.

Felix came over and grabbed his arm pulling him again from the group, “I may owe you an apology.”

There were a lot of things that could have meant, but if Felix was going set a record for the number of apologies he made in one day then Adrien wasn’t going to stop him. “Could you specify?”

“About the secretary.”

Adrien didn’t bother to correct Felix on her job title when there were more important things at hand. “Nathalie? Are you going to apologise for calling her his mistress?”

Felix shook his head. “I don’t even care about that anymore.”

“Seriously?” This was quite the change in opinion.

“Yeah, I might even owe her thanks.”

Now Adrien owed Nathalie thanks for a lot of things, not least his chance to go to school but he couldn’t think of what she could have done for Felix.

“Really?” he asked.

“I have heard the worst thing ever.”

Again, Adrien couldn’t work out where this was going, “How bad was it?”

“So. You know how everybody says we look more like brothers than cousins?”

“Yeah. I get that a lot. I mean I know technically we’re genetically half-brothers but still.” He didn’t understand why people felt the need to say it every time he and Felix met up together, even if they had brought it on themselves when they were little by answering to the wrong name.

“Right, and I’ve lost my dad?”

“Yes?” Adrien answered unsure.

“And you’ve lost your mum.” Felix continued.

What Felix was suggesting suddenly hit Adrien like a freight train “No.”

“Yes.” He confirmed clearly able to see Adrien had understood what he meant.

“No.” Adrien repeated. He liked Aunt Amélie but she was his _Aunt_ not a potential stepmother, and she and his father weren’t even that friendly, never mind that his father the only person his father was going to move on with was Nathalie.

“To be clear I also feel no. Very very no.” Felix clarified.

“That’s completely wrong.” Adrien finally managed to express his horror in more words than just no.

“It’s horrid isn’t it?” Felix agreed.

“Yes.”

“People keep saying it to me.”

“ _Why?_ ” said Adrien, once again wondering why people made the remarks they did.

“Trust me I wish I knew. I guess they just think our mothers are interchangeable because they look identical which is pretty rude, and, I don’t know, that it would be tidy or something?”

“Urgh” said Adrien unable even to find suitable words to express the utter wrongness of his father and Aunt Amélie together.

“My feelings exactly.” Felix said. “No, offence to your dad but I never want him to try and take my dad’s place. Besides he seems the strict type and if I wanted extra discipline I’d have had my mother send me to boarding school.”

“I can’t take any offence when you’re telling the truth” and actually Felix had spoken a truth deeper than Adrien had realised. For all his father’s protestations that he’d taken a backseat raising him he’d always been the one to act the disciplinarian. Perhaps his Aunt and Uncle had been the same. “Are you sure you’ve avoided boarding school?”

“Pretty sure. I’m the wrong age to start now and Mummy loves me too much to send me away anyway.”

* * *

His father found him after funeral, “Are you alright?”

Adrien almost snorted. “As much as I can be.”

His father frowned. “Perhaps this was a mistake.”

“What?” Adrien asked in confusion. “Having a funeral? It’s not like we could not have had one.”

“We…” He trailed off, then started again. “We could have had a more private service.”

“I don’t think that would have been fair. Lots of people liked Maman, its only right we gave them the chance to say goodbye too. I’d have wanted to in their place.”

“But you didn’t?”

Adrien tried to put his thoughts in place and come up with a reply that wouldn’t offend his father.

“I’m glad we know her fate now but, I don’t know. I guess this just doesn’t seem real after so long.”

“Perhaps, with time?” his father offered.

Adrien shrugged. “I think maybe it’s that I’d already said goodbye a long time ago.”

“I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Perhaps if I was more like you I wouldn’t have neglected you for so long.”

Adrien looked up at him, “I’m just happy you’ve stopped now. Even if I wish I hadn’t taken what it did.”

“Yes, well, I think we can all agree on that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some edits made to the last chapter make it slightly clearer.


	9. Chapter 9

Adrien tried to make his way down the stairs as silently as possible only touching the sides of the floorboards. He should be in bed but he did really need a glass of water.

Making his way across the lobby he froze as the lounge door opened.

“My god, Gabriel, we’ve not interchangeable. And maybe you should remember we don’t even know if my recovery will last before you try to use me as a replacement.” Nathalie yelled as she left the room.

She saw Adrien and froze.

His father followed her out, “I’m never said you were. I think I can tell the difference between the two of you. And you are getting better, every day without”

She cut him off “We shouldn’t have this conversation in front of Adrien.”

His father belatedly noticed his presence. “Why are you out of bed?”

“I wanted a glass of water.”

“Well, hurry up and get one.” His father said.

Nathalie gestured at him “And you wonder why I think this is a bad idea?”

“Adrien is fine with us.”

“I’m happy for you” Adrien interjected trying to diffuse the situation.

“You asked _Adrien_ before starting on this ridiculous idea?” Nathalie almost shrieked,

“I wasn’t going to pursue someone without his permission.” said his father.

“I don’t even know how I’m supposed to react to this.” Nathalie said. She glanced towards the door, and then went headed towards the stairs. “I’m heading to bed. Don’t follow me.”

Adrien met his father’s eyes “Did I mess that up?”

“Oh Adrien, no. If anything you were helpful.”

“Is everything ok?”

“Everything is still on track, yes.”

Any ideas Adrien had had of grand gestures to win over Ladybug suddenly looked much more dubious if this was his genetic inheritance in terms of convincing people to date him.

“That’s good. I should go get that glass of water.”

* * *

He stared at the answer he’d ended up with for X. That didn’t make any sense as a plausible answer to the question. He sighed and slouched down in his seat.

“All alright?” Nathalie called down the table.

“Urgh, I just can’t work out where I’ve gone wrong on this maths question, but I definitely have.”

She stood up and walked over to him, and he passed his workings over to her.

She frowned as she looked through it and held up her hand for her calculator.

“I’d have another look at that step if I were you.” She said pointing at one of his calculations.

He retypes what he’s done into his calculator and only to get a completely different number. He tries again and gets the new number again. He must have hit the wrong button at some point when working it out before..

“Thanks” he offered Nathalie, and went through the question again with these new numbers, and successfully got a more reasonable answer.

Nathalie had hesitated by him instead of returning to where she was.

“It's alright, I’ve got it now.” He tried to reassure her, feeling bad that she felt the need to supervise his homework.

She sighed, “Are you sure you’re alright Adrien?”

“Yes, why wouldn’t I be.”

“Things must be difficult with your mother’s death. I can’t believe that your father thought this was an appropriate time to talk to you about getting into a new relationship, never mind it being me, while I’m staying in your house.”

Poor Nathalie, he realised. From the conversation he'd overheard she must have thought this was some manifestation of his father’s grief. He tried to clear things up. “It wasn’t like that, he asked me how I felt about him dating you before they found Maman.”

“Before?”

“Yeah.”

Realisation flickered over her face, and he wondered what his father had done afterwards that she now had an explanation for.

“I’m so sorry.”

“What would you have to be sorry about?” he asked in confusion.

“I” she started then gave up.

“I don’t blame you for stealing him from her, if that’s what you think. I know we only just had the funeral, but for my father and me it’s almost two years since we lost her really.”

“You don’t?”

“No! I asked my father if there was something between you months ago, because I wanted him to be happy.”

“What? When?”

“The last time Aunt Amélie and Felix came. He didn’t take it well that time, but obviously things have changed.”

“So that’s what happened then. No wonder he didn’t want to tell me.” She mused.

“You do know I’m not lying when I say I’m happy for you right?”

“I know you want us to be happy, but it’s not your responsibility. We should be the one’s looking after you.”

Adrien gathered his courage. “Before I say anything else, there is something between the two of you right? He's not seeing something that isn’t there? What’s happening, it’s not sexual harassment or something right?”

She stared at him. “I can promise your father isn’t sexually harassing me.”

“Good.”

“I know he’s disappointed you recently, but he’s not that type of man.”

“Well that’s a relief. Not that I really thought he was, but you seemed so resistant to it, and I didn’t want to make things worse.”

“How could you make things worse?”

“I wasn’t just trying to be helpful when I said I’d like it if you got together.”

“I know.” She surprised him. “You said you wanted us to be happy, I know you really did mean both of us, not just your father.”

That was true but not quite what he’d be getting at. “No, I mean, selfishly.”

She frowned.

He tried to explain. “I guess I just want you to be part of our family officially. When you were in hospital people kept saying we weren’t related like that made a difference, and I got used to you living here with us too, and I just don’t want to lose you.”

“Adrien, I won’t leave you. Regardless of what happens with your father and my job, I’ll always be there for you” She paused. “And, thank you for telling me, it does mean something to me.”

“So, are the two of you?”

“It’s complicated. But if anything does happen I can promise you’ll be the first person we tell.”

* * *

This was getting a little bit ridiculous.

Hawkmoth was standing on the top of the bell tower of the Sacré-Coeur making effectively zero effect to hide himself at all.

Even in the darkness of the late winter afternoon his purple suit stuck out against the white building like a bruise. Visitors on the Grand Dome had been the first to spot him but they’d swiftly been sent back down into the Basilica and now the closest gawking civilians were in the grounds below. Mostly tourists who were less jaded by Akuma attacks than Parisians.

Adrien had had to make his excuses from his fencing class to get here. Why on earth couldn’t Hawkmoth have waited until he finished?

Ladybug was nowhere to be seen. 

Unfortunately his black was just as obvious against the basilica as Hawkmoth’s purple and the supervillain spotted him.

“Hello Chat Noir.”

“We’re really got to stop meeting like this you know.”

“And there was I trying to get your attention. Where’s your partner?”

“Oh her way.” He decided to move “Is Mayura alright?”

“Why do you care?”

“I shouldn’t I guess, but from what Duusu said, it didn’t sound pretty.”

“You talked to Duusu? I told you about the cost of the Miraculous.”

“I had to put it on, Ladybug was going to do it.”

“I’m sorry” Hawkmoth breathed out, “I’m sorry I put you in that position. You’re a brave boy, a braver man than me, but trust me you mustn’t use it again, or she'll never forgive herself.”

“Uh, I wasn’t planning to, but, I mean you do know it’s fixed right?”

Hawkmoth’s eyes widened, but he snapped “What? No it’s not, it almost killed Mayura.”

A weight lifted from Adrien’s shoulders at the confirmation that she did in fact still live. “Thank goodness.”

Hawkmoth looked at him oddly.

“You didn’t know about the reset then?”

“What?”

“You did fix the Miraculous. Duusu told us that the first time the wielder wears it after it fixed it resets the Miraculous so the magic runs through the right channels. Only it does the same thing to the user too, and given Duusu tried to explain to us as, 'turning them both on and off again”, I figured it sounded pretty dangerous. Duusu wasn’t sure if Mayura had worn it after you fixed it, but from what you said before, I think it sounds like she did.”

“She did. Are you telling she really is better now? That this isn’t just false hope.”

Adrien suddenly wished they’d grilled Duusu more on the situation. “Uh, yes I think so. I mean Duusu was too frantic to give us the full picture but she seemed to think the wielder should be just be back to normal just as the Miraculous should be.”

“That does sound like Duusu.” Hawkmoth smiled as he said it. He'd seen Hawkmoth smile before but never like this. It had always looked faintly unhinged. The smile equivalent of a cackle. This looked like pure relief.

Ladybug landed by them, and for once Adrien didn’t feel relief for her arrival, just embarrassment for being found talking to Hawkmoth, and strangely fear too though he couldn’t quite place why.

Hawkmoth's face too suddenly fell as if he’d forgotten it wasn’t just Chat Noir he had to deal with.

“So did you want it back then? You know we can’t give it to you.” She said.

“I wouldn’t want you to.” Hawkmoth said, “For Mayura's sake I'm glad it's fixed but I never want to see that thing again. It's taken more from me than you can know.”

She relaxed slightly, “Then why are you here? Were you looking for more help for her, I don’t know what exactly the Miraculous did to her, but it can’t have been easy for either of you.”

“It wasn’t and I suppose I am in a way.”

“What do you mean?” asked Adrien.

“This is a negotiated surrender. I'm giving up the Butterfly Miraculous.”

The two superheroes were struck silent by shock.

“Negotiated?” Ladybug managed eventually.

“Well I do have conditions. Or you know if you don’t like them I can always go back to releasing Akumas.”

He sounded amused but not, to Adrien's ear at least, malicious.

Perhaps Ladybug felt the same because instead of reacting to the jab she just went, “What sort of conditions?”

“My identity. I can’t have anyone know, and that includes you.”

“So, you essentially want to get away with everything you’ve done.” said Ladybug.

“That’s one way of looking at it I suppose, but I’m not asking for this for myself. There’s other people this would bring down with me, and they don’t deserve it.”

“Mayura?” Adrien ventured, unsure how he felt about this. It sounded like she’d already had a worse punishment than anything the French legal system would throw at her but she wasn’t exactly an innocent party.

“And another who’s had no part in this.”

“You _do_ have a child don’t you?” said Ladybug in realisation.

“You can’t expect me to confirm or deny that.”

“How are you expecting this to work then?” Ladybug changed the topic.

“You’d tell me somewhere to deliver the Miraculous to. Or we’d agree upon a place and I’d leave it there for you to pick up.”

“And you’d trust us not to spy on you doing so?” Adrien asked.

“You are supposed to be the heroes aren’t you? I’d have thought that would be a little beneath your moral code.”

“And letting you get away with everything wouldn’t?” asked Ladybug

Hawkmoth tilted his head sideways in a theatrical show of consideration. “I suppose I could just leave the Miraculous on one of the viewing platforms of the Eiffel Tower. That’s busy enough I’d hardly be noticed. Though of course you’d have to move quickly to make sure you were the one to pick it up.”

“No!” called out Ladybug. “OK, we’ll do it on your terms, I’ll give you a place, we’ll give you a five minute head start than, we’ll follow.”

“I agree to your terms, but,” Hawkmoth looked up, “It might take more than five minutes to escape those TV news helicopters.”

“You know,” Adrien said, “If you hadn’t picked somewhere so visible to meet us then that wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I needed to get your attention. I thought you’d appreciate this more than my sending out an Akuma.”

“Fair enough.” Adrien admitted.

“Look, said Ladybug, “We’ll lose them somewhere together. Then we’ll let them get off.”

As they ran over rooftops Adrien wished he and Ladybug had had a chance to confer. This just didn’t quite feel real. Still, he couldn’t see how the plan Ladybug had concocted gave Hawkmoth any easy way to twist it, to target them, and his relinquishing of the Peacock Miraculous had been no feint.

Eventually Ladybug bought them down in a small courtyard cover by trees.

“I don’t suppose we get an explanation for why you’re doing this?”

Hawkmoth shrugged. “My goal no longer seemed justifiable.”

“That’s all you’re going to give us?”

“Does it matter?”

“It’d make me feel happier it’s not a trap.”

“It’s not a trap. I honestly want to stop this.”

“I believe you.” She sighed, “I guess you want to drop this off somewhere busy. What about near the Startrain platforms at the Gare du Nord?”

“And get caught by the CCTV? I don’t think so.”

Ladybug put her hands on her hips in apparent exasperation. “Excuse me, for being put on the spot it’s not like I can trust you to pick the place.”

Hawkmoth shrugged. “I’m willing to explore other options. I’d _prefer_ to give it up as soon as possible, but I suppose it wouldn’t really make a difference.”

Church bells rang out over the traffic noise and Adrien winced at the time. He really hoped Ladybug had picked somewhere closer to home if he was going to make it back there in time.

“What about the fountain in the Place des Vosgues? Tourists put money in there so you shouldn’t stand out that much going it”

That was a smart enough suggestion. With all the houses around Hawkmoth seemed unlikely to set up any sort of trap for them there, but it wasn’t going to watched, and have police around like a train station would.

“That’s acceptable.” Said Hawkmoth. “And can I trust to your 5 minutes?”

“Yes” Ladybug said, “I’m not sure you deserve it, but I’ll do what I’ve agreed to do.”

Hawkmoth looked at Chat Noir in clear question.

“I’m doing what she says.” He said shrugging, and then feeling some kinship with Hawkmoth’s family added, “Don’t waste this opportunity. Those people you’re doing this for? Don’t let them down.”

Hawkmoth gave a tight nod then leapt off using his staff to propel himself.

* * *

Ladybug picked the Butterfly Miraculous up.

“Is this it? Is this all over now?” Adrien found himself asking.

“It seems like it.”

“Huh, really not how I was expecting it to go down.”

“Me neither. I mean in a good way!”

“Oh yeah definitely.” Nice as his imagined Great Final Defeat of Hawkmoth in battle was this was probably safer for everyone in Paris, and he supposed for Hawkmoth and his family too. Now he wasn't fighting them anything Adrien was ready to be magnanimous towards the former villain. 

“Do we need to, tell Paris?”

“Oh, wow, I hadn’t even considered that. I guess? I mean I’m fairly certain this wasn’t a trick.”

“I don’t see how it can be. I can tell this is a real Miraculous. “

“Should we hold a news conference?”

“Maybe? It feels like the right thing to do, but I’ve not got indefinite time before people realise I’m gone, and start looking for me.”

People were going to notice Adrien was missing too if he wasn’t there to be picked up from fencing. Once he detransformed he’d immediately text Gorilla and left him know he didn’t need a lift but that only gave him so much time before his father and Nathalie would notice.

“We could delay it a few days?”

“And leave people wondering why we met Hawkmoth on the roof of the Sacré-Coeur, and ran off with him?”

Put like that it doesn’t sound so good.

“How long do you think it’d take those news helicopters to catch up with us?” he asks.

“Less time if we head back up to the roofs?”

“We could explain some of it, and say we’ll answer more questions in a press conference later.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

* * *

They weren’t wrong about how long it would take. The TVi helicopter was the first to find them and Adrien let Ladybug take the honours in giving the statement they’d jointly prepared that they had acquired the source of Hawkmoth’s powers, but the necessity of securing the situation meant they couldn’t give any further explanation at this time.

Remembering their previous run ins with the reporter, and Ladybug’s complaints, he tried to stand behind Ladybug looking supportive and professional but without invading her space or looking too ridiculously love-sick.

He knew it wouldn’t be as easy as that later once they had to explain that they’d essentially let Hawkmoth go, but that was an issue for another day.

* * *

Chat Noir raced back towards the house. Then he considered the time and that Adrien had yet to return and detransformed, and approached the gate buzzing the keypad. The small camera came out and on recognizing Adrien the gate opened.

Nathalie opened the door to him, looking confused at the lack of his bodyguard, and the car.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He said. He couldn't quite hide his excitement, but then he didn't need to. “I’m totally fine, and apparently so is all of Paris, did you see the news?”

“I did. But it seemed hard to believe, why would Hawkmoth give up now?”

“No idea. But he does honestly seem to have done it.”

Nathalie frowned. “How can you know that?”

“My best friend’s girlfriend is the international Ladybug authority. I know lots of things.”

“And he gave up the Butterfly miraculous?”

“Yeah, honestly I think it’s all for Mayura’s sake.”

“For Mayura’s sake?” she asked, a slight hint of shock audible below her attempted disinterest.

“Oh yeah, you wouldn’t know. He already gave Ladybug and Chat Noir the Peacock Miraculous. Apparently it was hurting her somehow. Ladybug didn’t want to say anything then, but I think it’s safe to admit it now. Anyway, he didn’t exactly admit why he was giving up the Butterfly but reading between the lines I think he realised she and their child-Ladybug and Chat Noir, seem to think they have a kid, are more important whatever his goal was before.”

“Oh.” Said Nathalie. Then in a total non sequitur she said “You don’t have any extra curriculars tonight do you?”

“No.” he said lost as to where she was going with this. “Piano was yesterday, and Chinese is after school tomorrow, and I don’t have any basketball this week because the team we were supposed to play pulled out.”

“You’ve never had a sleepover have you?”

“No?” He said completely lost at where this conversation was going.

“Who’s your best friend, that Nino?”

“Um, yeah.” he answered still confused at what she was getting at.

“His surname’s Lahiffe isn’t it? His parents will be on the class list?”

“…yes?”

“I’m going to ring his parents. You’re a teenager. I think you deserve a sleepover.”

“Now?”

She smiled “All of Paris has been awaiting Hawkmoth's defeat, you should be able to celebrate it with your friends, not with us boring adults.”

“Will my father be ok with that?”

“Don’t you worry about that.” 

* * *

His bodyguard raised an eyebrow at Nathalie as she bundled Adrien into the car.

“I’m fine.” She said in response.

His second eyebrow rose to meet the first as he gave her a doubtful look.

“Yes, I’m sure I know what I’m doing and it’s what I want. Besides I thought you liked Adrien having more time with his friends.”

Unfortunately Adrien couldn’t make out Gorilla’s response as the man got into the car but Nathalie looked fairly unbothered anyway shrugging before giving them a wave off.

* * *

“Dude!” Nino grabbed him as he came through the news. “Did you see the news!”

“Me and the rest of Paris!”

“Hawkmoth giving up, and your dad sending you off on an unscheduled sleepover? That’s two miracles in one day, I’m just waiting for the third to round it out now. Maybe I’m going to get a scholarship to film school.”

“You might have to get your Baccalaureate first.”

“Details. Marinette’s already designing for Jagged Stone, and Alya’s beating TV news crews.”

“Fair point.” Adrien admitted feeling kind of bad they’d given their defeat of Hawkmoth video to Nadja Chamuck rather than Alya, but it had been convenient. Maybe Ladybug would agree to give Alya a follow up video?

“I should text Alya actually. There’s going to be so many celebrations in the city tonight, I bet my parents will let us go out and meet the girls at one. How come your dad let you go out anyway? Did something happen?”

“Uh, it wasn’t my father, it was Nathalie.”

“And that makes a difference?”

“She’s a little more likely to let me do stuff, but I don’t know why she set this up really, I just asked her if she’d seen the news, and she decided I needed a sleepover?”

“Huh.”

“Huh?”

“All that homeschooling really did make you innocent didn’t it?”

“Hey, I watched lots of TV, I know how the world works. Sort of.”

“That actually explains a lot. Seriously though do you not see what’s going on with her getting you out of the house?”

“No?”

“I hope you’re sure about being in the market for a new stepmother.”

“You think she’s going to agree to date him? I don’t know, I talked to her about it the other day and she said it was complicated. Anyway why would that make her send me on a sleepover, they both know I’d be” he stopped as he realised what Nino was actually implying. “Why would you put that image in my head?”

“I’m just saying the obvious.”

“I have been betrayed by my best friend.”

Nino patted him on the back in faux-sympathy.

“Anyway” Adrien said, “I don’t get why me telling her Hawkmoth was defeated would cause” he didn’t want to say it. “ _that.”_

“Because they want their own private celebration? I bet my parents are kicking themselves for not thinking of it.”

“Please stop. And again Hawkmoth being defeated isn’t going to just suddenly change things.”

“Wasn’t it Hawkmoth who put her in hospital? If that was me, him going down would definitely make me feel safer, and ready to start new things.

“I still hate you, but you have a point.” Adrien admitted. He hadn’t thought of it that way but of course Nathalie would feel safer with Hawkmoth out of the picture. She’d been so closed off earlier he hadn’t really noticed, but it was obvious when you thought of it.

Nino laughed. “You’re not going to hate me when I get you to the best street party celebrating Hawkmoth’s surrender.”

* * *

Adrien couldn’t say Nino had bad taste in where he took them. The music _was_ good, and it was mostly other people their age there. He’d noticed a few of his classmates and other people from school milling around.

He could though be envious of what he had with Alya, and while he was fully supportive of his best friend and his girlfriend he didn’t really appreciate being abandoned. Especially when he had to find Nino again before they were due back at his parents. Admittedly they’d abandoned Marinette too so at least this was an equal opportunity friends abandonment.

“So are you enjoying it?” he ventured. He liked Marinette but she was a hard nut to crack. He’d never quite been able to figure out her true feelings towards anything, partially because she _was_ so nice to everyone.

She said something unintelligible over the sound.

“Should we go somewhere quieter?” he said trying to be as loud as he could be without yelling.

She must have got his gist because she nodded frantically.

He pulled her away from the DJ’s stage and thankfully once they turned a corner the sound receded enough for them to talk.

“I was saying, are you enjoying this?”

“I think so! It’s just, I don’t know, I wasn’t expecting it to end like this.”

“Me neither!” Adrien started, before remembering that of course Marinette couldn’t know what actually happened. “I guess I thought there’d be some big final battle or something!”

“Me too.” Expressed Marinette rather fervently. “I mean I’m glad Chat Noir, and Ladybug are all safe but,”

“Yeah” He tried to help, “It’s kind of an anti-climax right?”

“Do you think the rumours about Hawkmoth surrendering are true?”

Adrien scrambled to answer. Technically he and Ladybug hadn’t admitted that was what had happened but given what the news cameras _had_ captured and then them appearing saying they had the source of Hawkmoth’s powers but no Hawkmoth, he couldn’t be that surprised people had put the pieces together.

“Maybe. I mean, I wouldn’t have expected it from, but if that’s what’s happened it’s all for the good right?”

“You don’t think Ladybug and Chat Noir should have put up more of an attempt to capture him?”

Feeling a sudden protectiveness of Ladybug Adrien struggled to keep his temper as he replied to Marinette, “No. We don’t know what he might have said to them. Threatened them with even. Ladybug and Chat Noir are the only people who know what happened this evening and I trust them. And I’m not saying that just because people are constantly asking me to be their Chat Noir model because they can’t convince him to.”

“Oh.” Marinette’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought about that happening but I guess it makes sense. You’re not unlike exactly. But I’m happy that someone else believes in them! I’ve met Chat Noir and I don’t believe he’d do the wrong thing for Paris.”

Adrien couldn’t help puffing up at Marinette’s praise. “I’m glad to meet another fan. Even if I’ve more of a Ladybug person myself.”

He thought she blushed slightly, but at that point Alya and Nino finally reappeared and he never had a chance to chase that up.

* * *

On the way back home the next day Adrien tried very hard to not think about what Nino had implied about last night. If Nino was right he was happy for them. He really was but he didn’t want to think about that. He tried to focus on better thoughts. Like how there was nothing keeping he and Ladybug from revealing their identities now.

He knew it wouldn’t magically make her interested in him-she still had that guy she liked but he wanted to have her in all of his life regardless of what capacity that was in. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t enjoy hanging out with her on top of buildings as Chat Noir, but it would be nice to just do normal things with her too; especially now his chances of getting to leave the house with his friends looked higher. It would be nice to be able to talk about school and his other friends with her without having to censor anything.

Though, he couldn’t help but regret that he’d never had a chance to prove himself to Ladybug. He’d apologised for what he’d done with the Peacock but he’d never had a chance to prove he’d change. Would Ladybug even want to be his friend if they revealed their identities?

He was still dwelling on this uncomfortable thought when they reached the house.

His bodyguard let them into the house, just as his father came into the hall.

“I thought I heard the car.” Said his father. “Did you have a good night?”

“Yeah, we” actually letting him know Nino’s parents had let him out unaccompanied was probably a mistake, “had some friends over as well to celebrate.”

“I’d glad you had fun.”

“I think all of Paris did, I never realised how much stress Hawkmoth was putting everyone under.” It wasn’t that it hadn’t been stressful for him too, but he was perhaps the only person in Paris who’d actually enjoyed everything Hawkmoth had caused.

“Yes, I saw the celebrations on the news.” 

“Did you go out to any of them?” asked Adrien automatically before he realised just what a stupid question it was.

His father blushed. “No. Actually I wanted to meet you when you got home because I’ve something to tell you. “

“Did you and Nathalie finally get together?”

“Yes, actually. How did you guess?”

“Um.” Adrien did not want to give the true answer to that question. “You just look happy?”

“Right.” His father said somewhat uncertainly. For a moment Adrien was concerned he was further going to query his answer, but all he said was “Well, I’m sure you must have questions about what this means for you.”

“I’m not sure I do?” Adrien replied. They both knew he was happy about it, and in retrospect it seemed pretty clear how it had happened, he’d realised his feelings when she almost died, and she’d was ready to accept hers once she felt safe with Hawkmoth gone. The only thing he could think to ask was “I mean this means she’s staying here with us right?”

His father hesitated. “I hope so.”

“You hope so?”

“We’re still working things out. We thought I should be the one to tell you, and Nathalie thought you’d probably want to sleep away much of the day, but if you do think of more things to ask, we’ll both be there at dinner.” His father moved to turn away but then turned back to Adrien. “You do know this won’t change anything between us? I’m not replacing your mother?”

“Yeah, I know.” Said Adrien carefully avoiding the fact that he hoped this might actually improve things between them, with Nathalie less constrained by professionalism, and his father more willing to listen to her.

* * *

That evening when Adrien sat down at dinner he couldn’t stop smiling. His father and Nathalie both looked so happy and it was infectious.

They both seemed a little uneasy about Hawkmoth’s surrender but he supposed it must be difficult for anyone who hadn’t lived through it.

Yet for the first time in a long time it felt like he was really part of a family again.

It might have been a odd sort of family, and other people might not understand, but they were his.

**Author's Note:**

> First attempt at fic again in...literal years so please be kind! That said I know that any attempts of mine at proofreading are abysmal so if there's any particularly egregious typos or sentences that just don't make sense I won't be offended at all if you point it out.


End file.
